Culture
Art summit brings practitioners together
By Nicole Montesano
Smoke Signals staff writer
Practitioners of Native artwork will have the opportunity to gather and exchange ideas and views Thursday, Oct. 23 at Chachalu Tribal Museum & Cultural Center, as the Cultural Center brings back its art summit. This year’s theme is “Carving out space for keeping place.”
The public will be invited in the following day for an open house in conjunction with the Chachalu Marketplace, which is held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24.
Current and past winners of Indigenous Place Keeping Artist Fellowships will be invited to attend and this year’s winners, Douglass Burgess (Grand Ronde) and Chantele Rilatos (Siletz), will be giving presentations during the artists-only portion of the summit.
“It’s a great opportunity for the Indigenous Place Keeping fellows to be able to share what they’re working on,” Arts Administrator Mack McFarland said. “It’s an opportunity to create those networks and links for artists.”
The fellowship, which provides up to $20,000, was created by the Tribe in 2022, to enable artists within the Tribe’s traditional homelands to develop their careers and resumes.
“Part of what the art program hopes to do is support and champion the lower Columbia River and Chinookan art that is native to this region,” McFarland said. “It is separate from other forms of Native art. So, it’s way of bringing practitioners together, to talk about the future of this art form. … It’s the mission of the Cultural Resources Department to foster dialogue and that’s what the summit does.”
Art, McFarland noted, “is not static. It will shift and grow and change, and how you do that is by being in dialogue with artists.”
Toward that end, the department is scaling back to just two presenters this year, rather than the four it offered last year, to give individual artists more time to connect.
“A lot of people will also be working on things,” he said, which will give them the opportunity to see each other’s work, share tips, seek advice and generally enjoy the camaraderie and support of fellow artists.
“These kinds of gatherings are vital for artists and lifeway practitioners,” McFarland said.
Although the public will not be invited to attend that portion of the summit, which is strictly for the artists, they are encouraged to attend Friday to meet with the artists, view their art, learn more about the fellowships, tour the museum and enjoy shopping at the marketplace for Native-made art, crafts and more, plus, produce, flowers and homemade foods.
McFarland said that in addition to the usual vendors at the marketplace, the participating artists will be provided with wall or table space to set up displays and be able to offer work for sale, if they choose.
The fellowship is administered by the Grand Ronde Cultural Resources Department. More information is available by emailing Cultural.Resources@grandronde.org.