Ye’inyahwh! Come on in to Home Collections Exhibition 2024
by Muriel Ammon
Ye’inyahwh! Come on in. Brittany Britton has curated the Martha Stewart of Northern California Native living rooms. Reminiscent of your grandma’s home, you will spot regalia suitcases stacked in the corner, cooking bowls sitting on shelves, and burden baskets used to house children’s toys as they transform the gallery into something of a community home. Home Collections Exhibition came to be through an online prompt: “Hey folks! I’m putting up an exhibition on the hidden gems by Native Artists we all have in our homes. The beautiful pieces that make us feel at home, it could be paintings, drawings, sculptures, quilts, regalia, caps, baskets, lamps, vases – all things we’ve gotten from other Native Artists in our lives. Famous or not famous (yet), I’d love to see them! (Britton, 2024).” Set abuzz, people began to go through their home inventories. Some knew immediately what they wanted to share, while others walked around their houses and questioned: What do I have to give? What do I have that is ‘Native Art?’ Home Collections makes evident that the answer to this question stands true for another: What are my most precious, beloved belongings? The collection displayed in Cal Poly Humboldt’s Goudi’ni Gallery is a behind-the-scenes snapshot of Northern California Native Art & Community. Open today (November 22, 11 am – 2 pm) and by appointment Monday through Wednesday of the coming week, come on out for the last days of the show!
Inspired by childhood memories of home, Gallery Director Britton and student team configured a collection of loaned works from the community into a series of household scenes. Britton details her vision, “In my mind, and probably yours too – we know what peoples’ houses look like. I wanted it to look like that.” No small feat in a gallery setting. Carved stools and sofas beckon the audience to sit down, sink in, and take in the scene. Almost like watching TV, Britton shares, you can sit and enjoy Brian D. Tripp (Karuk)’s larger than life The Best Things in Life Are Not Free, 1989.
The Best Things in Life Are Not Free (1989) Brian D. Tripp
Looking up at the piece now, I think of the visual cues Tripp uses to indicate home. Hupa, Yurok, Karuk, Wiyot, Tolowa, and Tsnungwe tribes continue to live in community here in our homelands. Longstanding relationship to place and a unique phenomenon of cultural intertwinement provide bases for a shared visual language amongst carvers, painters, hat crocheters, ceramicists, basket weavers, and regalia makers. And we, the community, are drawn with pride to the absolute beauty of these works, these creations that articulate our own identities. So many people lent Brian D. Tripp pieces. Looking at The Best Things in Life Are Not Free, a great, mixed piece covering the wall, it just pulls you in. The reds, yellows, and blacks. The spirals and geometric shapes. The dynamic mess of material and lettering in all caps. Britton captured his brilliance exactly, “It’s just speaking and coming from this other space. The fact that he felt so free with this visual language, that is all the stuff that we know to be in our culture. It’s astounding.” There are several pieces by Tripp in Home Collections. Britton tells me, “I was joking that this could be subtitled The Brian Show. Mostly, I think, because of his passing – these are cherished items that we all have – we hadn’t had a chance to share, even with Brian, that we have these things in our home. And because his passing was so recent, it’s even more dear to be able to share these things.” It’s a gift to the community to put these objects out, and, just as much so, it’s a gift to lenders who get to honor and share their stories.
Maple Spoon Lamp (2016) Jason Begay-Montgomery
Some items were key for Britton in creating the feel of home. Kayla and Chuck Begay lent Britton two gorgeous lamps crafted by Jason Begay-Montgomery (Hupa). One lamp houses an elkhorn spoon of carved Maple and the other an imitation prayer feather. I have Home Collections to thank for bringing them into my awareness and onto my Pinterest boards as the epitome of Hupa class. An acorn paddle made by Loren Bommelyn (Tolowa Dee-ni) hangs on a living room wall, as it might at home. The label shares that since its creation in 1981, it has been used every year by Bommelyn’s family to make acorn soup. This paddle is healthy. And that’s how each item in this exhibition feels. They’re used. They’re taken care of. They’re full of life.
Subverting typical museum displays for authentic home displays, Britton allows the audience to engage in new ways. Even the students who helped put the exhibit together had to think outside the box. Briton explains, “I was asking them to do things that were so far outside of 60-inch eye-height. We’re hanging stuff stacked, and a little bit higher. It looks more like a living room, where we have too many things and we’re just trying to put them on the wall. It’s this ‘maximalist’ kind of look, versus galleries which tend to go towards minimalism.” Working within best-practices, Britton zhuzhed up plexiglass cases with patterned shelving liner. “The vitrines end up reading so much like ‘Natural History Museum,’ but we’re doing it for the security of the work. That’s really hard to get away from.” Home Collections has received high praise from the community, and much of that must be attributed to Britton’s innovation. More please!
Redwood Stools, Alme Allen; Carved Bench Eagle (2024) Kevin Wilder;
Cecilia’s Flower Dance Dress (Cassie Nordstrand)
Something so beautifully apparent in Home Collections is the intimate exchange between family and friends. A set of hand painted boxes by Lyn Risling. A note of thanks from Tripp to Denise McKenzie. A graduation gift from Marva Sii~xuutesna Jones (Tolowa Dee-ni). Britton smiles, “Thinking about the little craft things that you make for your friends and family, just as an artist. And we don’t see those because they have a very explicit studio and exhibition showing experience, as practicing artists. But having these craft items that they make for their friends and family – cause those are Alme and Pimm’s [boxes] – those are amazing!” There’s these long lines you can draw between people and pieces. Over the course of their careers, as artists, mentors, cultural bearers, language teachers, and ceremonial leaders, they’ve given so much to the community. So many of us have collected Tripp’s poems and Risling’s cards, small keepsakes treasured on college dorms, pinned to the fridge, or kept safe in shoeboxes.
Native-led Activist Group Supporting Repatriaiton, Facebook
This concept of ‘Home’ goes much further, doubled by community-led repatriation efforts. Repatriation is spoken most in terms of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), with museums being directed to return ancestors and items of cultural provenance. Private collectors are not held to this standard. Old time caps, which would have been kept by ceremonial dance leaders and passed down through families, now sit in people’s attics across the country. And not because we didn’t want them. Now, we need these caps to wear in ceremony. Britton explains, “It’s kind of amazing how much people watch for stuff at auctions. And the fact that we all know that there’s stuff at auctions and on eBay all the time. It feels like a disconnect. It’s so disparate from NAGPRA – that’s very explicit about what it’s set to do.” Home Collections brings to attention this phenomenon of Native people buying baskets and caps from private collectors and pawn shops, and reincorporate these items into cultural use through revitalization efforts. In practice, this can look like people waking up every morning to check online auctions. There are many skilled basket weavers, including young people, who provide the community a huge service by making new caps. Denise McKenzie (Tolowa, Yurok), is one such basketmaker, whose work is shown in Home Collections. This community effort to bring home our ceremonial regalia is perhaps not widely recognized within the non-Native community. In fact, this section of the exhibition is the first educational tool I’ve come across that teaches about this ‘buying back’ effort.
Congratulations to Britton for seeing this exhibition through to fruition. We are so fortunate to have a brilliant museum director working in our community. Home Collections is able to speak to the joy in our community, the strength in relationships, and the place that art has in the day to day lives of our community members. Britton speaks to the community’s response, “People have been stoked. I’m actually surprised. I think it caught a moment where people are like, ‘Hell yeah I have cool stuff in my house! I have stuff that I want to share, that nobody else gets to see.’ I’m surprised at the level of enthusiasm, and even the level of trust that people give the gallery and give me. I never want to break that trust. It’s a blessing and it’s surprising every time. I’m just like, I’m going to ask and no one’s going to say yes. I always want to honor that trust. The fact that they are trusting us so students, with our guidance, can handle their items with care and with protection. So we can represent it in a way that is kind and good for the objects. I’m still shocked every day.”
