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The Arts of Everyday Life
We expected to find one thing and we found many. Our plan was to drive north to Hoopa and Willow Creek, then, later, east to North Fork and Midpines. Before we left I thought, perhaps too simplistically, that a basketweaver only weaves baskets, and that a carver does little more than carve. In the field, News from Native California managing editor Margaret Dubin and I knocked upon the front doors of many gracious and generous individuals who shared with us their work, their philosophies, and their personal histories. We discovered individuals who are not exclusive in their creations, but who make many things. The utilitarian objects they produce transcend the boundaries of tribal affiliations and go beyond gender specificity and traditional techniques of manufacture. Inspired by ancestral tradition and history, dream visions and personal experience, television shows and cultural pride, the artists we spoke with are fluent in a broad range of interconnected art forms. Basketweavers make soaproot brushes, soaproot brush makers make fish nets, canoe carvers weave, clothing designers write children's stories, and tribal elders bead belts and necklaces while processing acorn meal. Furthermore, these objects of daily use are constructed and decorated with both simple and elaborate beauty.
"Living is not a way of art...but art is a way of living." Gary Witherspoon's observation about Navajo art and its essential concept of hozho also describes the arts of everyday life in native California. The preparation of food, the gathering of basket materials, the sewing and decoration of clothing, and the creation of various stone tools, to name only a few things, are culturally oriented manifestations of the beautification of everyday life and everyday objects. In all instances, the functional and pragmatic aspects of a process or product are in harmony with the aesthetic. As indicated by the title, this supplement takes as its focus the "arts of everyday life." Objects that are normally referred to, by Western definition, as "utilitarian" or "craft" are recognized here as not simply tools for survival but as works of intrinsic and deliberate beauty. In other words, as art.
Kimberley Cunningham-Summerfield (Cherokee/adopted Miwok) and I sat together in a long line of RVs, motorcycles, camera-clicking tourists, and small rental cars stuffed with big...