In 2005, traditional artist Jut-ke-Nay-Hazel Wilson was inspired to create a series of large ceremonial textiles linked to moments in Haida lore and her own lived experiences.
A year later, she had produced a total of 51 ‘history robes’ documenting everything from pre-colonial life to logging to happy harvesting memories.
This month, the Museum of Anthropology presents I Use My Haida Eyes: The History Robes of Jut-ke-Nay-Hazel Wilson, a retrospective of some of her most significant 1 1/2-by-two-metre artworks that will fill the museum’s largest gallery.
A member of the Duugwaa St’Langng 7laanaas clan on the Raven side, Wilson was selected to be trained as an appliquéd button blanket and ceremonial robe-maker at age 14. The melton-cloth textiles decorated with all manner of buttons and other media play an important part in Haida traditions.
With her 2005 cycle of robes documenting the life and death of the sacred Golden Spruce Tree (K’iid K’iyaas), her work would take on new directions.
And Jordan Wilson, the MOA’s Pacific Northwest + Contemporary Indigenous Art exhibition curator, says this is the first time that all but one the artist’s 51 history robes have been in a single show.
“I became aware of these robes a number of years ago, and one of the things that struck me was that they had never before been shown as a complete series and now we have 50 of the 51 together,” he said. “I’ve had the privilege of looking over the majority of them at the Marion Scott Gallery, who are stewarding the robes, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what the effect of having them all displayed will be.”
All the Nations Came Together Putting Away the Magic, by Jut-ke-Nay–Hazel-Wilson.
Wilson’s Golden Spruce Tree series of 17 blankets had only been displayed in full at the Marion Scott Gallery once before. The History Robes are an even grander collection of the artist’s reimagining of the creation process. Wilson followed traditional design for the first three decades of her career before departing into a bold new direction in design.
“What we typically call button blankets or robes are ceremonial garments meant to be worn that typically depict an individual’s family or clan’s crest imagery, so it is a real identifier of where someone is from and who they belong to,” he said. “The History Robes are a departure in multiple ways, beginning with the formal materials traditionally used in their creation such as abalone, shells and so on. For these robes, Hazel used acrylic paints, different kinds of fabrics and other things to create these narrative, historical scenes.”
By doing this with her designs, Wilson departed from her original training in making clan-based blankets or appliquéd Chilkat clothing. Her choice to expand her traditional training wasn’t taken lightly, but once she began to do the more narrative and representational style, she continued with it.
“There is a lot going on with these robes, in terms of the time span depicting both pre-European contact and afterwards,” said Jordan Wilson. “There are stories that were imparted to her by family elders as she was growing up, very specific land-based practices in specific areas of the Haida landscape that she would have directly experienced growing up and things she re-elected upon about the impacts and ramifications of first contact in her writings.”
Both the number of robes and the significant time span that their designs depict presented a puzzle for Jordan Wilson to work out when deciding on how best to arrange the exhibit. He says the combination of both lived and learned histories in the material posed the question of whether to go for a timetable based around the robes’ creation dates or something more thematic.
“Unlike other exhibits, I knew from the start that I had a very specific body of work to include,” he said. “The more I read the stories she wrote to go along with the robes, the more I grappled with the question because she never sequenced the robes. Sometimes it gets slippery, because a story might start in the past and then finish up in the future.”
The solution was to arrange the works thematically, really trying to co-ordinate the final layout with her writings and notes.
The Mistake (2006), by Jut-ke-Nay-Hazel Wilson.
“We have eight or nine sections, which I feel have kind of a flow between the gravity of what is being depicted in the more difficult and challenging histories and the more regular moments,” he said. “For instance, there is a robe depicting her waiting to be taken away to residential school and another dealing with the waves of smallpox epidemics and first contacts.
“But then there are robes that are capturing these joyful childhood experiences with narratives about ancestors that are very rich in their teaching and the values being imparted.”
One of the interesting things about all of the History Robes series is how Wilson made them. Once she had decided on the materials to be included in the piece, she would began without any pre-planned idea.
“It’s one of the things that makes them all the more impressive, how she would just have this picture in her mind’s eye and just start doing it,” he said. “Her daughters talk about going to thrift shops to look for materials like mother-of-pearl buttons and other items, and that is where we took the name for the exhibit. In one of her writings, Hazel talks about how to use or repurpose things like old shirts and other material and she writes, ‘I use my Haida eyes.’ ”
I Use My Haida Eyes: The History Robes of Jut-ke-Nay-Hazel Wilson runs until Oct. 12. Tickets and information at moa.ubc.ca.
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