Jamie Gentry

Da’naxda’xw Nation, Kwakwaka’wakw Tribe

Jamie has made it her mission to incorporate traditional teachings into functional fashion. Born and raised in Victoria, BC to a family of talented artists who helped her discover her passion, she eventually relocated a short distance to Sooke, on the southernmost tip of Vancouver Island, where she discovered a teacher to help fulfill her lifelong desire to make moccasins. “My whole life I was drawn to the arts,” Jamie says, “but I was particularly drawn to working with my hands, whether it was sewing, beading or weaving. I find it very meditative to be in my sewing studio.” Jamie fashions traditional, custom pieces for modern day living, with a focus on style, comfort and durability and an emphasis on sustainability. Each design is cut, beaded and sewn by hand and, as Jamie says, “infused with love,” making each final product unique.

Nathalie Waldman

Dene Nation, Dogrib Tribe

Nathalie was adopted and raised in Montréal, Québec. As a member of the Dene Nation, located in Canada’s Northwest Territories, she traveled north to learn more about her heritage.

The Dene Nation, also known as the Athabascan Peoples, has existed for 30,000 years, with one language, many dialects and five Aboriginal tribes. Learning from her family, a welcoming community and other local designers, she mastered beadwork, quillwork, sewing with leather and traditional leather tanning techniques. As a First Nations leathercraft artist, she incorporates the urban Montreal influences of her youth along with a rich cultural heritage to create exquisite, one-of-a-kind designs and takes pride in the fact that they are also practical and functional. She selects natural hide and leather that exhibits character, and loves that deerskin is “sturdy, easy to clean and only gets better with age.” Inspired by nature and travel, Nathalie is based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she predominantly works alone but also enjoys collaborating with other artists.

Nathalie Waldman

Dene Nation, Dogrib Tribe

Nathalie was adopted and raised in Montréal, Québec. As a member of the Dene Nation, located in Canada’s Northwest Territories, she traveled north to learn more about her heritage.

The Dene Nation, also known as the Athabascan Peoples, has existed for 30,000 years, with one language, many dialects and five Aboriginal tribes. Learning from her family, a welcoming community and other local designers, she mastered beadwork, quillwork, sewing with leather and traditional leather tanning techniques. As a First Nations leathercraft artist, she incorporates the urban Montreal influences of her youth along with a rich cultural heritage to create exquisite, one-of-a-kind designs and takes pride in the fact that they are also practical and functional. She selects natural hide and leather that exhibits character, and loves that deerskin is “sturdy, easy to clean and only gets better with age.” Inspired by nature and travel, Nathalie is based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she predominantly works alone but also enjoys collaborating with other artists.

Allen Hood

Navajo Tribe

Born in Rehoboth Mission, east of Gallup, New Mexico, Allen eventually relocated to Idaho with his parents. He learned the art of traditional tanning from his brothers-in-law and members of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes of the Fort Hall reservation. He has passed the skills on to his son. If you ask an experienced tanner how long it takes to produce a finished hide, they probably can’t tell you. The process is so involved and labor-intensive that most tanners won’t do just one; Allen typically works on up to a dozen at a time. They may also cultivate reliable sources, networking to obtain their raw materials. Allen has worked with individual suppliers in Burley and American Falls, Idaho; Lebanon, Oregon; and a mountain man from Minot, North Dakota who had traveled to a gathering in Green River, Wyoming.

Camellia Fisher

Shoshone-Bannock Tribe

Raised on the Fort Hall Reservation, Camelia Fisher learned to bead from her aunt and uncle in the style passed down from her grandfather, whose beadwork was renowned. Sho-Ban artists are recognized for museum quality beadwork, displaying a tradition of skill, creativity and diversity. The use of glass beads (as opposed to natural materials such as quills, feathers, stones or seeds) became prevalent among Native artists around 150 years ago, and provides a rich array of possibilities for conveying images and scenes interpreted by the artists. The rose has become a dominant and recognizable pattern among Shoshone artists, with Intermountain tribes specializing in intricate floral and geometric designs using beading patterns and techniques distinct from other tribes. Camelia specializes in geometric designs and works with size 13 (very small) beads, which is much more time consuming and lends an extraordinary characteristic to her work. One elder described the Shoshone style this way: “We, like other Native Americans, use elements that surround us, like the mountains seen as geometric designs…Roses are something beautiful in nature which surrounds us. Originally we used the wild rose, but after the Shoshone were exposed to embroidery through boarding schools we began making more elaborate designs.” Another adds, “Our grandfather also helped us by telling us about the colors of the sky and the animals, explaining about the markings and the movements of certain wildlife.” You can see these influences in the work of Camelia Fisher.

Camellia Fisher

Shoshone-Bannock Tribe

Raised on the Fort Hall Reservation, Camelia Fisher learned to bead from her aunt and uncle in the style passed down from her grandfather, whose beadwork was renowned. Sho-Ban artists are recognized for museum quality beadwork, displaying a tradition of skill, creativity and diversity. The use of glass beads (as opposed to natural materials such as quills, feathers, stones or seeds) became prevalent among Native artists around 150 years ago, and provides a rich array of possibilities for conveying images and scenes interpreted by the artists. The rose has become a dominant and recognizable pattern among Shoshone artists, with Intermountain tribes specializing in intricate floral and geometric designs using beading patterns and techniques distinct from other tribes. Camelia specializes in geometric designs and works with size 13 (very small) beads, which is much more time consuming and lends an extraordinary characteristic to her work. One elder described the Shoshone style this way: “We, like other Native Americans, use elements that surround us, like the mountains seen as geometric designs…Roses are something beautiful in nature which surrounds us. Originally we used the wild rose, but after the Shoshone were exposed to embroidery through boarding schools we began making more elaborate designs.” Another adds, “Our grandfather also helped us by telling us about the colors of the sky and the animals, explaining about the markings and the movements of certain wildlife.” You can see these influences in the work of Camelia Fisher.

Allen Hood is one of a small band of experienced practitioners with the skills to tan and preserve hides using traditional Native American methods. Modern methods using chemical baths have largely replaced brain tanning by hand, and it’s easy to see why. Either way, without proper curing, rawhide will decompose and leave a stiff, putrid final product. Done correctly, this laborious task produces soft, water-resistant buckskin that is supple, durable and lovely.

 

 Allen begins with stiff, dry hides which have hair and meat intact, and they’ll likely have been preserved in salt, possibly even frozen. The first step is to soak them for two days in a barrel of water, then take a sharp knife to the hides, scraping and shaving to remove as much hair, flesh and tissue as possible. They soak two more days before another round of scraping to remove any remaining follicles and epidermis (which holds the hair to the hide), a task referred to as “graining.” Labor-intensive and meticulous, this 5-6 day process is crucial because any patches or streaks of grain left behind will impede brain and smoke penetration, and the hides won’t soften. Neatsfoot oil is applied to both sides and left to dry; once the oil has been absorbed, hides are soaked another two days.

When hides have been wrung but are still damp (gauging proper water content for maximum flexibility is a judgment gained through trial and error), Allen begins pulling and stretching them to open the pores. Meanwhile, he’ll have prepared a brain solution for tanning. Once done with cow brains, no longer viable since the introduction of mad cow disease, he uses pork brains he obtains from Fort Hall. The brains are oven-roasted to brown and preserve them, then frozen for use whenever needed. Once the stretched hides are dry, he applies the brain solution (brains + hot water), letting the hides soak overnight. Emulsifying agents in the brain matter break down the mucous membranes (what Allen refers to as “animal glue”) which cause the hides to harden. Ensuring the hides are soft and wet all the way through and there are no “hard” spots after another round of hand-stretching, they’re hung out to dry for a day. They go back into hot water once again for more softening before being hung over a log or the back of a chair, and Allen is in for 6-8 hours of stretching the hides every 20 minutes or so to work them into a uniform thickness and softness. This task gets harder as he progresses, and if he judges they aren’t softening adequately, the process may need to be repeated. Hides often take two brainings, but some may take up to five. Even before the final stretching, if no additional braining is required, the process has easily taken up at least two weeks of expert manual labor.

When stretched and supple, hides are suspended over a smoker. The type of wood used will affect the finished color (Doug fir will render a browner hue; sage gives a yellower tint), but the key is to have a fire with very little flame and mostly smoke, which acts as a preservative. The color of the finished hide can also be affected by the season and the type of weather throughout the tanning process.

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