These faceted body parts, outlined in flowing curvilinear and interconnected black lines known as formlines, were rendered with minimal diversion* in a specific color palette of lemon yellow and blue-green or robin’s egg blue over the ivory ground (the natural color of the mountain goat’s wool). Unlike the way by which many of us encounter the Chilkat blanket today-spread flat and hanging in a museum case, the Chilkat blanket was conceived to be a royal object in motion: the fringe swirls and sways as the wearer- with the blanket draped over his or her shoulders much akin to a shawl-dances, dipping and turning to a drum beat (see a photograph of one in motion here).īy the mid- to late-1820s, the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsmshian tribes (see map here of geographical distribution of cultural groups) were weaving what is now referred to as the “classic” Chilkat blanket style, discernible by the sophisticated almost-cubist design principle in which a crest animal or creature (which visually communicated the original wearer’s house or clan identity) is dissected into a multitude of abstracted and flat (non-three dimensional) body facets and spread out amongst the design field in dizzying complexity so as no space is left uncovered. Unpacking a Phrase: What is a Chilkat blanket? What Native culture was the brainchild of this weaving art? These vertical warp strands function as the supporting ribs for the whole textile, and were breathtakingly delicate to the touch! As I ran across historic photograph after historic photograph within the Burke’s Ethnology Archives depicting noble Tlingit and Haida figures enveloped in these expressionistic and esteemed Chilkat blankets ( Figure 1), I knew that I needed to explore the cultural identity embedded in these woven garments. It was at this point that my friend enlightened me to the fact that the vertical strands (known as the warps) concealed beneath their fluffy vanilla exterior of mountain goat wool a heart of cedar bark, which provided stability and substance to the blanket. What awed me the most, though, struck me while gently encouraging the layers of fringe cascading from the base of the design field to lay flat against the wall. A friend had asked me to assist in suspending one of these northern Pacific Coast Native woven creations from a wall in his gallery, and I was at once taken aback by the complex, fractured design, the striking tightness of the weave and the subtle-yet impactful shifts-in the blanket’s texture, as well as the rhythmic nature of the limited color palette. My first encounter with the alluring and boldly graphic ceremonial dancing blanket, known extensively as the Chilkat blanket, was this past summer.
0 kommentar(er)
