Our Blog

Even when the red willow wood Georgianna Houle uses to make baskets cuts and gnaws into her hands, she keeps working.

Pain isn’t a good enough reason to stop something she loves and feels a deep-rooted family and cultural connection to, she says. It’s that inherent focus that made Houle one of this year’s First Peoples Fund Community Spirit Award winners.

“I was surprised and very happy to be selected,” said Houle, who lives on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in Belcourt, North Dakota.

Her grandmother, who first discovered the art by watching a migratory worker as they rode a freight train to work, passed down the tradition of basket making to her. She formed a deep bond with her grandmother, Selina, who also taught her how to sew dolls and do beadwork. When it came to learning how to make baskets from her mother and grandmother, Houle said it didn’t come easy.

“It was really hard for me at first,” she says. “My mother would challenge me.”

The baskets, which are made with red willow found near her home, can be used as decoration or for use around the home to hold items such as bread, laundry, or business cards, depending on the size. The wood, which is also referred to as Dogwood, must be picked before the spring and summer season. It has to be cleaned, and then shaved to reveal the signature colors associated with the baskets.

The work is worth it, Houle says, who has spent several years visiting local schools and community colleges, explaining the art form and giving hands-on training.

Her baskets have been sold regionally and some of her grandmother’s baskets have been displayed in the Smithsonian Institute. Selling her work has helped support her family, she says, and it’s always exciting when a customer takes the time to admire the art form.

“I’m grateful they are appreciative of my art,” she adds.

It has also been a way to focus on the positive while living on the reservation. Making the baskets, which require so much time and focus, is a way to relax and pray, she says.

Houle, who has received business training from First Peoples Fund, hopes to start a business selling more of the baskets. She has also partnered with the Turtle Mountain Tribal Arts Association, which has a location in Belcourt. The Community Spirit Award, she says, is a wonderful, meaningful compliment.

“I feel really honored to be selected, and honored for my mother and grandmother who passed it on to me."

Pete Peterson, Sr. (Skokomish), a First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital grantee in 2006 and 2012, says he always enjoys attending First Peoples Fund events.

“It’s like being a member of a large family,” he says.

Yet this year, in addition to seeing friends and welcoming the 2012 CSA honorees into the First Peoples Fund community of artists, Peterson and his wife Marilee experienced something new. Peterson was a major contributor to the first ever First Peoples Fund art auction. He donated a bentwood box, made from a red cedar tree given to him by the forest service in the Olympic Mountains—it was a piece that everyone admired at the lively (and sold-out) pre-show art auction.

And that beautiful bentwood box found a home after the auction. When it sold, the buyer’s glow was contagious—everyone around him cheered and clapped. Then the final bidder realized that the artist was standing right next to him, and they had the opportunity to discuss the piece at length. The artist and the buyer giddily studied the box inside and out, as Peterson described how he created the piece, told stories about the designs, and the new owner of the bentwood box explained that it was going to be a heirloom that he would pass on to his children, and his children’s children.

“It was a wonderful experience, being able to meet someone who appreciates a piece as much as he seemed to, it was nice to talk with someone that dedicated to art.”

Peterson began his work as an artist in silver and gold media almost 40 years ago. At 17, he enlisted in the Navy, where he was trained as a machinist, which he believes developed his manual dexterity and natural eye for detail. He then worked as a logger in the Olympic Mountains, which also prepared him for the materials he now uses to create art.

Currently he is working on a mask, two maple spindles, and on a small bentwood box for his great-granddaughter. He says he always has three or four projects going on at once. “When I get tired of one project, I just go to one of the others,” he says.

The box he is making for his great-granddaughter is a bank box 6 inches by 6 inches by 10 inches high. He is making it so that there is a hole where she can put money in, but there is no way for her to open it and take the money out unless his great-granddaughter brings the bank box to him to saw open.

Peterson’s family is clearly a focus of his life. Not only do family members receive his blessings, but some are continuing the tradition. He has made sterling silver bracelets, using only Northwest designs, for every female member of his family. Peterson’s son Paul is an artist, in wood carving and mixed media. He received a First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership Award in 2011.

Peter Jemison is celebrating Thanksgiving this year in a way that is both new and traditional by continuing centuries-old customs of the Iroquois Six Nations. His son manages the Akwe:kon (pronounced uh-gway-go) program house for undergraduate students at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. For the first time, Jemison’s family will host a dinner for students who aren’t able to go home for the holidays.

The house was established at Cornell in 1991 by Ron LaFrance (Mohawk) to celebrate American Indian culture and heritage. The 35 student residents of the house share an interest in Native issues and the importance of community. In the Mohawk language, Akwe:kon means “all of us,” reflecting the spirit of inclusiveness, and celebration of diverse cultures and backgrounds the house offers to students.

For more information about the house at Cornell, check out http://www.campuslife.cornell.edu/campuslife/housing/undergraduate/akwekon.cfm