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Book Cover
E-book
Author Smetzer, Megan A., author.

Title Painful beauty : Tlingit women, beadwork, and the art of resilience / Megan A. Smetzer
Published Seattle : Bill Holm Center for the Study of Northwest Coast Art, Burke Museum : University of Washington Press, [2021]
©2021

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Description 1 online resource (xiii, 221 pages) : illustrations (some color), map
Series Native art of the Pacific Northwest: A Bill Holm Center series
Native art of the Pacific Northwest.
Contents Cover -- Copyright -- Contents -- Map of Southeast Alaska, Southern Yukon Territory, and Northern British Columbia -- Preface: Painful Beauty -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Innovating Adornment -- Chapter 1: "They Are Both Plain and Fancy": Souvenirs and Status within the Alaskan Tourist Trade -- Chapter 2: Regalia and Resilience: Beadwork at the 1904 "Last Potlatch" -- Chapter 3: Co-opting the Cooperative: Making Moccasins in the Mid-20th Century -- Chapter 4: Gifts from Their Grandmothers: Contemporary Artists and Beaded Legacies -- Epilogue: Beading Beyond Borders -- Notes
Summary "For over 150 years, Tlingit women artists have beaded colorful, intricately beautiful designs on moccasins, dolls, octopus bags, tunics, and other garments. Painful Beauty suggests that at a time when Indigenous cultural practices were actively being repressed, beading supported cultural continuity, demonstrating Tlingit women's resilience, strength, and power. Beadwork served many uses, from the ceremonial to the economic, as women created beaded pieces for community use and to sell to tourists. Like other Tlingit art, beadwork reflects rich artistic visions with deep connections to the environment, clan histories, and Tlingit worldviews. Contemporary Tlingit artists Alison Bremner, Chloe French, Shgen Doo Tan George, Lily Hudson Hope, Tanis S'eiltin, and Larry McNeil foreground the significance of historical beading practices in their diverse, boundary-pushing artworks. Working with museum collection materials, photographs, archives, and interviews with artists and elders, Megan Smetzer reframes this often overlooked artform as a site of historical negotiations and contemporary inspirations. She shows how beading gave Tlingit women the freedom to innovate aesthetically, assert their clan crests and identities, support tribal sovereignty, and pass on cultural knowledge. Painful Beauty is the first dedicated study of Tlingit beadwork and contributes to the expanding literature addressing women's artistic expressions on the Northwest Coast"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on September 23, 2021)
Subject Tlingit beadwork -- Northwest, Pacific
Tlingit women -- Northwest, Pacific
Tlingit artists -- Northwest, Pacific
ART / Native American
Tlingit artists
Tlingit beadwork
Tlingit women
Pacific Northwest
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2020055822
ISBN 9780295748955
0295748958