April 11-13 a group came to Dillingham known as First Light Alaska. It is a group that promotes indigenous arts and culture. There were several classes teaching some sort of indigenous art form offered throughout the weekend. They were supported by a grant, so the classes were completely free to the public. I had the opportunity to take the Caribou Tufting class. What is Caribou Tufting you may wonder? I wondered the same thing, but signed up anyway. It is a form of Native art that involves sewing decorative pieces with caribou hair. After the caribou is skinned and cleaned, the hair (still attached to the skin), is soaked in dye and then it can be used to create artwork. Chunks of hair are cut off from the skin and then placed under a loop of sinew/thread and then the thread is pulled tight, really tight, like give your fingers blisters by the end of the day tight. Since the hair is hollow it kind of puffs up like a pompom. After you've attached your caribou hair you carve/shape it with scissors until it takes the shape you want. It was fun, but also very frustrating. If you don't do it just right, the caribou hair will come out. After hours of working on my piece, my teacher came over to inspect it and pulled out all my caribou hair and I had to start over. I did it a second time, making it really, really tight, shaped it and then got it all pulled out by my teacher again. By my third time around, there was a piece that didn't look quite like I wanted and I tried to take it out, but it was in there so tight I couldn't get it off. I guess the third time is the charm. Overall, it was much harder than it looked and I gained an appreciation for the time and effort that goes into a piece like this.
Kaitlyn's Caribou Tufted Hair Pin To the right is a picture of the piece I made. It is a hairpin. The flower is made entirely of caribou hair (the petals are the natural color of the hair, and the center is dyed). The leather part is moose and then there is some embellishment done with beads.
When first moving to rural Alaska, I scoffed at the high prices of the artwork, but since trying my hand at a few of the disciplines the past years I now look at the prices and think "what a deal".
