Kelly Church | |
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![]() Church in 2023 | |
Born | Kelly Jean Church 1967 (age 56–57) Michigan, U.S. |
Nationality | Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan, American |
Education | Family, self-taught AFA Institute of American Indian Arts BFA University of Michigan |
Known for | Basket making, painting, birchbark biting |
Movement | Woodlands style |
Awards | NEA National Heritage Fellowship (2018), Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Award, Southwestern Association for Indian Arts Fellowship |
Website | woodlandarts |
Kelly Jean Church (Match-e-benash-she-wish Potawatomi/Odawa/Ojibwe) is a black ash basket maker, Woodlands style painter, birchbark biter, and educator.
Kelly Church, a fifth-generation basket maker, was born in 1967. She grew up in southwestern Michigan. Her mother is of English and Irish heritage, and her father is of Potawatomi, Odawa, and Ojibwe heritage. Church studied the Odawa language from her paternal grandmother and learned black ash basketry from her father, Bill Church, and cousin, John Pigeon. She, in turn, has taught her daughter, Cherish Parrish (Gun Lake Band Potawatomi). [1]
Church has completed an AFA degree at the Institute of American Indian Studies and a BFA degree at the University of Michigan. [2]
Along with her family, Church harvests her own trees in swampy areas of rural Michigan. Preparing the materials takes far longer than the weaving. She removes the bark from the felled log and then splits apart the growth rings into finer and finer splints for basketry. The splints are dyed and soaked before weaving. [3]
Church's baskets range from the utilitarian fishing creels, market baskets, and bark baskets to rectangular wedding baskets and whimsical strawberry baskets. [4] She also creates experimental baskets with her own designs that incorporate materials such as copper, photographs, and plastic window blinds – the latter a warning of what the future might look like without black ash trees. Her work reflects on the potential extinction of the black ash due to the infestation of the emerald ash borer, which is estimated to kill 99 percent of the ash trees in the United States. [5]
Church is an active birchbark biter. This precontact Great Lakes art form involves biting designs with one's eyeteeth into a folded sheet of young paper birch bark. The bit areas turn a dark brown that contrasts with the pale surface of the bark. Her designs are both abstract and representational, featuring turtles, dragonflies, and other subjects. [4] The resulting pieces incorporate storytelling, as well as serving as templates for quillwork and beadwork designs. [2]
Inspired by the Woodlands style of painting, also known as Legend or Medicine painting, created by Norval Morrisseau (Bingwi Neyaashi Ojibwe, 1932–2007). [2] Church paints figures from her tribes' oral histories, such as Nanabozho, or the wildlife native to Michigan, such as sandhill cranes. She typically works in acrylic on canvas and uses contrasting colors for maximum optical brilliance.
Church has won many awards for her basketry, including the Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Award [1] and the 2008 Southwestern Association for Indian Arts Fellowship. In 2006 and 2008, she organized a symposium about tactics to save the black ash tree from the emerald ash borer, [1] with funding and support from the National Museum of the American Indian. More recently, Church also received the National Museum of the American Indian Artist Leadership Program Award (2010), as well as the Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Award (2011).
Church was awarded the best of basketry classification by the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 2016. The Smithsonian Institution awarded her a Native Scholars Fellowship in 2016. In addition, she has served as Eiteljorg Artist in Residence, and is a recipient of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation's National Artist Fellowship. [6]
The National Endowment for the Arts named Church as one of its 2018 National Heritage Fellows. The citation noted her teaching and mentorship work, which "goes beyond the artistic practice to include discussions in biochemistry, forest management, invasive pest control, traditional language skills, and deeply personal memories of family history". [6]
Her work, Sustaining Traditions–Digital Memories, was acquired by the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of the Renwick Gallery's 50th Anniversary Campaign. [7] [8]
A basket is a container that is traditionally constructed from stiff fibers, and can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehair, baleen, or metal wire can be used. Baskets are generally woven by hand. Some baskets are fitted with a lid, while others are left open on top.
The Potawatomi, also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie, are a Native American people of the Great Plains, upper Mississippi River, and western Great Lakes region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a member of the Algonquian family. The Potawatomi call themselves Neshnabé, a cognate of the word Anishinaabe. The Potawatomi are part of a long-term alliance, called the Council of Three Fires, with the Ojibway and Odawa (Ottawa). In the Council of Three Fires, the Potawatomi are considered the "youngest brother". Their people are referred to in this context as Bodéwadmi, a name that means "keepers of the fire" and refers to the council fire of three peoples.
The Odawa are an Indigenous American people who primarily inhabit land in the Eastern Woodlands region, now in jurisdictions of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. Their territory long preceded the creation of the current border between the two countries in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Basket weaving is the process of weaving or sewing pliable materials into three-dimensional artifacts, such as baskets, mats, mesh bags or even furniture. Craftspeople and artists specialized in making baskets may be known as basket makers and basket weavers. Basket weaving is also a rural craft.
The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic Santa Fe Federal Building, a landmark Pueblo Revival building listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Federal Building. The museum houses the National Collection of Contemporary Indian Art, with more than 7,000 items.
Birchbark biting is an Indigenous artform made by Anishinaabeg, including Ojibwe people, Potawatomi, and Odawa, as well as Cree and other Algonquian peoples of the Subarctic and Great Lakes regions of Canada and the United States. Artists bite on small pieces of folded birch bark to form intricate designs.
Woodlands style, also called the Woodlands school, Legend painting, Medicine painting, and Anishnabe painting, is a genre of painting among First Nations and Native American artists from the Great Lakes area, including northern Ontario and southwestern Manitoba. The majority of the Woodland artists belong to the Anishinaabeg, notably the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi, as well as the Oji-Cree and the Cree.
The visual arts of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic practices of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America and North America, which includes Central America and Greenland. The Siberian Yupiit, who have great cultural overlap with Native Alaskan Yupiit, are also included.
Annie Antone is a Native American Tohono O'odham basket weaver from Gila Bend, Arizona.
The Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan is a federally recognized tribe of Potawatomi people in Michigan named for a 19th-century Ojibwe chief. They were formerly known as the Gun Lake Band of Grand River Ottawa Indians, the United Nation of Chippewa, Ottawa and Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan, Inc., and the Gun Lake Tribe or Gun Lake Band. They are headquartered in Bradley, Michigan.
Mary Kawennatakie Adams was a Canadian Mohawk First Nations textile artist and basket maker.
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Patrick William Kruse, also known as Pat Kruse, is a Native American culture teacher and artist that specializes in birchbark art and quillwork. He works alongside his son Gage to create birch bark paintings.
Cherish Nebeshanze Parrish is a black ash basket maker and birchbark biter. She is a member of the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan and of Odawa descent.
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