Post by blackcrowheart on Apr 12, 2007 10:56:32 GMT -5
Heritage center's after-school curriculum includes hands-on lessons in
cultural history
By DAWNELL SMITH (_dsmith@adn.com_ (mailto:dsmith@adn.com) )
Anchorage Daily News
In a building full of dust and wood chips, teenage girls push chisels and
sandpaper over spruce wood and poplar, steadily nudging raw wood into
traditional Native hunting visors. The room is quiet except for a few mutterings and
the periodic buzz of a band saw.
Not far away, dozens more students sing, jump, grunt, laugh, toss a
football, talk on cell phones and bang drums in the main building of the Alaska
Native Heritage Center, where they are practicing dance and Native games. But here
in the Feller Building, the art students navigate a narrow room of extension
cords and equipment, waiting for the approving nod of Pete Lind Sr., a man
who has carved longer than many of their grandparents have been alive.
Woodworking isn't Joleen Lane's favorite art form, but the 17-year-old
Bartlett High School student considers it a valuable experience. After two years
in the after-school program at the heritage center, she has learned not just
about her Inupiaq heritage but about other Alaska Native cultures as well.
"It gets me to know my tradition and meet new people," Lane said.
Lane, who wears black fingernail polish and red highlights in her hair,
studies visual art at the center four days a week during the school year. She
prefers beading and sewing to other art projects but appreciates the chance to
learn something new from someone as experienced as Lind.
"He pushes us to get to work and tells us to pay attention," she said. "But
he's a cool guy."
Lind says he feels like a baby sitter much of the time, but that goes for
adult classes too. The last two weeks of January, he worked with high school
kids in shaping hunting visors in the afternoons and then taught an evening
workshop in building dog sleds. The cutting, carving, bending and fastening
tools and processes can do worse damage to skin than wood, he said, so he never
lets students near the power tools without his supervision.
He described the student visors as "beginner hats" because of their small
size and simplicity, but one of his own works, "Chief's Visor," sits in a case
in the heritage center's museum, elaborately painted and adorned. His piece
has the earmarks of patience, practice, maturity and skill but shares cultural
meaning with all visors.
As hunters became more accomplished, he said, they wore visors with longer
bills and counted their kills by adding whiskers and beads. The hat revealed
the hunter's prowess, but because of its width and sturdiness, it also became
a survival tool when a hunter lost a paddle, or it became a hindrance in high
winds.
"People think they're just a hat, but they're not," Lind said. "You have to
know what they are about. You have to know their stories."
CULTURAL PRIDE
The heritage center's after-school program strives to connect urban students
from indigenous cultures with their elders and traditions. Students choose
from visual art, dance, media/technology, leadership or Native games, but
whatever their emphasis, the purpose remains the same: "to preserve and
perpetuate Native culture and languages," said Becky Etukeok, art coordinator for the
heritage center and an instructor for the after-school program.
About 65 students are enrolled in the after-school services and 30 to 35
participate regularly, said Bob Harty, who directs the program. Others show up
some days, alternating with school activities like sports.
"We could take up to 80 pretty easily," he said, "but can only provide
transportation for 67, the number of van seats we've got."
Students from the eight major high schools in Anchorage and Eagle River can
get picked up and dropped off, but others need to find their own rides.
Dance attracts the most students, though most mix it up a bit, maybe dancing
most of the time and then taking an art class to make a dancing mask or
garment. Other students split time every week.
Harty likes to keep it flexible but wants every participant to be exposed to
leadership concepts. "My belief is that every child has the potential to be
a leader, so we have presenters who talk about what leadership means to them
and how they realized those qualities within themselves."
Patricia Partnow, the center's vice president of cultural and educational
services, encourages growth across the board, both in curriculum and
participation. The after-school program serves Alaska Native, Pacific Islands and
American Indian students for free through funding from the U.S. Department of
Education.
"To me, one of the most wonderful things to see happens when our staff goes
into the schools to recruit, and the kids already in the program are being
upfront about what they're doing," she said. "They're seeing themselves as
emissaries of their cultures."
That means a lot to her, she said. "I'm old enough to remember when it
wasn't so cool to be seen as Native."
QUEST FOR A MASTERPIECE
All areas of study in the after-school program enrich cultural awareness and
pride, but participants who work with the masters learn from some of the
most accomplished artists in the state -- people like Perry Eaton, who has
helped rejuvenate the Alutiiq mask carving tradition, and Amanda Attla, known for
her seed-bead jewelry, sewing and other art.
Some students work with almost every master artist who comes through the
center. Jocelyn Adams, a graduate of the program, spent three years doing visual
art and made dolls, Eskimo yo-yos, sun catchers, amulet pouches, cedar bark
basket hats, paddles, miniature mukluks, silver bracelets, gloves, masks and
ivory pendants with master artists as teachers.
Taking her work home to her parents turned into the best part of the
experience, she said.
"It was like I was a little girl coming home from school and showing my
parents my artwork, but this time it was art from our heritage, and I think it
made them proud too," Adams said.
Good teachers inspire curiosity, Etukeok said. "You foster this knowledge
within the student, an inquisitiveness of their own cultural background and a
conversation that extends to the home and the community."
Kids in some schools still see Native heritage as a stigma, and the
after-school program aims to replace that kind of thinking with something positive,
she said. Master artists can do this by telling stories and making the past
relevant to kids today.
When the master artist leaves, "my job is to make sure they finish their
projects," said Etukeok, but it doesn't always happen.
Lane never finished the mask she started in Eaton's workshop a year ago, for
example, but art training really has to do with learning processes and
materials more than the final product. Besides, Lane intends to get her visor done
this time.
"It's new to me, only my second time carving," she said, "but I hope it
comes out a masterpiece."
cultural history
By DAWNELL SMITH (_dsmith@adn.com_ (mailto:dsmith@adn.com) )
Anchorage Daily News
In a building full of dust and wood chips, teenage girls push chisels and
sandpaper over spruce wood and poplar, steadily nudging raw wood into
traditional Native hunting visors. The room is quiet except for a few mutterings and
the periodic buzz of a band saw.
Not far away, dozens more students sing, jump, grunt, laugh, toss a
football, talk on cell phones and bang drums in the main building of the Alaska
Native Heritage Center, where they are practicing dance and Native games. But here
in the Feller Building, the art students navigate a narrow room of extension
cords and equipment, waiting for the approving nod of Pete Lind Sr., a man
who has carved longer than many of their grandparents have been alive.
Woodworking isn't Joleen Lane's favorite art form, but the 17-year-old
Bartlett High School student considers it a valuable experience. After two years
in the after-school program at the heritage center, she has learned not just
about her Inupiaq heritage but about other Alaska Native cultures as well.
"It gets me to know my tradition and meet new people," Lane said.
Lane, who wears black fingernail polish and red highlights in her hair,
studies visual art at the center four days a week during the school year. She
prefers beading and sewing to other art projects but appreciates the chance to
learn something new from someone as experienced as Lind.
"He pushes us to get to work and tells us to pay attention," she said. "But
he's a cool guy."
Lind says he feels like a baby sitter much of the time, but that goes for
adult classes too. The last two weeks of January, he worked with high school
kids in shaping hunting visors in the afternoons and then taught an evening
workshop in building dog sleds. The cutting, carving, bending and fastening
tools and processes can do worse damage to skin than wood, he said, so he never
lets students near the power tools without his supervision.
He described the student visors as "beginner hats" because of their small
size and simplicity, but one of his own works, "Chief's Visor," sits in a case
in the heritage center's museum, elaborately painted and adorned. His piece
has the earmarks of patience, practice, maturity and skill but shares cultural
meaning with all visors.
As hunters became more accomplished, he said, they wore visors with longer
bills and counted their kills by adding whiskers and beads. The hat revealed
the hunter's prowess, but because of its width and sturdiness, it also became
a survival tool when a hunter lost a paddle, or it became a hindrance in high
winds.
"People think they're just a hat, but they're not," Lind said. "You have to
know what they are about. You have to know their stories."
CULTURAL PRIDE
The heritage center's after-school program strives to connect urban students
from indigenous cultures with their elders and traditions. Students choose
from visual art, dance, media/technology, leadership or Native games, but
whatever their emphasis, the purpose remains the same: "to preserve and
perpetuate Native culture and languages," said Becky Etukeok, art coordinator for the
heritage center and an instructor for the after-school program.
About 65 students are enrolled in the after-school services and 30 to 35
participate regularly, said Bob Harty, who directs the program. Others show up
some days, alternating with school activities like sports.
"We could take up to 80 pretty easily," he said, "but can only provide
transportation for 67, the number of van seats we've got."
Students from the eight major high schools in Anchorage and Eagle River can
get picked up and dropped off, but others need to find their own rides.
Dance attracts the most students, though most mix it up a bit, maybe dancing
most of the time and then taking an art class to make a dancing mask or
garment. Other students split time every week.
Harty likes to keep it flexible but wants every participant to be exposed to
leadership concepts. "My belief is that every child has the potential to be
a leader, so we have presenters who talk about what leadership means to them
and how they realized those qualities within themselves."
Patricia Partnow, the center's vice president of cultural and educational
services, encourages growth across the board, both in curriculum and
participation. The after-school program serves Alaska Native, Pacific Islands and
American Indian students for free through funding from the U.S. Department of
Education.
"To me, one of the most wonderful things to see happens when our staff goes
into the schools to recruit, and the kids already in the program are being
upfront about what they're doing," she said. "They're seeing themselves as
emissaries of their cultures."
That means a lot to her, she said. "I'm old enough to remember when it
wasn't so cool to be seen as Native."
QUEST FOR A MASTERPIECE
All areas of study in the after-school program enrich cultural awareness and
pride, but participants who work with the masters learn from some of the
most accomplished artists in the state -- people like Perry Eaton, who has
helped rejuvenate the Alutiiq mask carving tradition, and Amanda Attla, known for
her seed-bead jewelry, sewing and other art.
Some students work with almost every master artist who comes through the
center. Jocelyn Adams, a graduate of the program, spent three years doing visual
art and made dolls, Eskimo yo-yos, sun catchers, amulet pouches, cedar bark
basket hats, paddles, miniature mukluks, silver bracelets, gloves, masks and
ivory pendants with master artists as teachers.
Taking her work home to her parents turned into the best part of the
experience, she said.
"It was like I was a little girl coming home from school and showing my
parents my artwork, but this time it was art from our heritage, and I think it
made them proud too," Adams said.
Good teachers inspire curiosity, Etukeok said. "You foster this knowledge
within the student, an inquisitiveness of their own cultural background and a
conversation that extends to the home and the community."
Kids in some schools still see Native heritage as a stigma, and the
after-school program aims to replace that kind of thinking with something positive,
she said. Master artists can do this by telling stories and making the past
relevant to kids today.
When the master artist leaves, "my job is to make sure they finish their
projects," said Etukeok, but it doesn't always happen.
Lane never finished the mask she started in Eaton's workshop a year ago, for
example, but art training really has to do with learning processes and
materials more than the final product. Besides, Lane intends to get her visor done
this time.
"It's new to me, only my second time carving," she said, "but I hope it
comes out a masterpiece."