{"id":57708,"date":"2020-01-19T13:05:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-19T22:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/weavers-prepare-for-stunning-gathering-in-juneau\/"},"modified":"2020-01-24T08:57:55","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T17:57:55","slug":"weavers-prepare-for-stunning-gathering-in-juneau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/weavers-prepare-for-stunning-gathering-in-juneau\/","title":{"rendered":"Weavers prepare for ‘stunning’ gathering in Juneau"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t

Thousands of hours of work and hundreds of years of history are coming to Juneau.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

A Gathering of the Robes<\/a>, which will bring together newly completed and ancient ceremonial dancing blankets as well as a robe meant to honor survivors of domestic violence, is planned ahead of Celebration 2020, the every-other-year Southeast Alaska Native culture festival held in the capital city. <\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“There will be over 50 robes, ancient and contemporary,” weaver Lily Hope said in an interview Sunday. “We’re going to have hundreds of years of creation.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\"photos<\/a>

photos by Ben Hohenstatt | Capital City Weekly\n Lily Hope holds up patches that will be woven into the Giving Strength Robe, a Chilkat robe meant to honor survivors of domestic violence. The in-progress robe was present Sunday at a work session that featured a dozen weavers.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

Hope is the daughter of late acclaimed Chilkat and Ravenstail weaver Clarissa Rizal. She is also an award-winning Tlingit weaver and weaving teacher and president of Spirit Uprising, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the integrity of Ravenstail and Chilkat weaving.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

[Alaska Native weaving project honors survivors of domestic violence<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Chilkat and Ravenstail weaving are complex art forms traditionally practiced by Northwest Coast Alaska Native peoples, and make use of hand-twined textiles.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Hope said all of the robes that will be present at the June 9 event will be danced.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“That will be stunning,” said Pattie Adkisson, a weaver who was part of a dozen-person group Sunday working on zipper pulls that will become commemorative favors for those who attend the Gathering of the Robes.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Hope described what they were making as Chilkat tunic<\/a> fringe zipper pulls since the woven objects were made to resemble the dangling material at the edges of the traditional garments.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\"Ben<\/a>

Ben Hohenstatt | Capital City Weekly\n A completed Chilkat tunic fringe zipper pulls lay on a table Sunday at the Tlingit and Haida Community Center.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

The small, woven zipper pulls had the same white-purple-teal coloration of The Giving Strength Robe, which is a Chilkat and Ravenstail robe dedicated to survivors of domestic violence and destined to be kept at Aiding Women in Abuse and Rape Emergencies’ shelter in Juneau.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

The Giving Strength Robe will be made up of dozens of squares made by weavers from both the U.S. and Canada. Hope is leading the project.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\"This<\/a>

This square was woven by Patty Fiorella for the Giving Strength Robe. (Ben Hohenstatt | Capital City Weekly)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

The weavers were kept company by the in-progress Giving Strength Robe as well as some completed works by Kay Field Parker that will be danced during the gathering.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“It took about eight months of working at it like a part-time job,” Parker said of a tunic that rested on a table near the working weavers.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

[There are new plans for the Giving Strength Robe<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Hope said she prefers not to know how much time she puts into a project but 1,000-1,200 hours for a Ravenstail robe is fairly typical. A Chilkat robe can take up to 2,000 hours. <\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Hope, who is leading the Giving Strength Robe project, said the ultimate goal for the accomplished group is to produce 400 of the Chilkat tunic fringe zipper pulls.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

It’s expected to take several full days of work for the weavers to complete that project.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\"Tria<\/a>

Tria Bowers works on a Chilkat tunic fringe zipper pull at the Tlingit and Haida Community Center on Sunday. Bowers was part of a group of a dozen weavers who were working on the zipper pulls ahead of a Gathering of the Robes event planned for June.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

Once that’s done, Hope said they’ll have produced keepsakes that will unify and identify people who attend the Gathering of Robes.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“For years to come we can identify each other and identify the experience,” Hope said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\"Kay<\/a>

Kay Field Parker and Skeenyàa Tlàa Nancy Keen hold up bunches of zipper pulls, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2020. Both weavers were part of a 12-person group working to create the Chilkat tunic fringe zipper pulls that will be distributed to attendees of the Gathering of the Robes. (Ben Hohenstatt | Capital City Weekly)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

• Contact reporter Ben Hohenstatt at (907)523-2243 or bhohenstatt@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BenHohenstatt.<\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s all coming together. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":474,"featured_media":57709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":11,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[185,74,73],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-57708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home2","category-news","tag-alaska-natives","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-ccw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/474"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57708"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=57708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}