It turns out that they may have over-bought. With construction complete some time ago and the cases filled with dolls, baskets, masks, ivory carvings etc., the auxiliary found itself with more art than it had space to display.
Hence this coming Saturday's sale. The annual Native People's Bazaar, featuring notable artists from around the state, will take place as usual from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.
There will be entertainment, Christmas ornaments, ivory, baskets and -- you know you want 'em -- sealskin slippers, plus a collector's table and a "vintage" table.
But they will also be offering museum quality artwork collected before 1997 with an eye toward being included in the Heritage Collection. All or most pieces are, in fact, by artists already represented in the collection. They include baskets, beadwork, bone sculptures and other traditional media. Check it out at the "treasures" table.
Another big crafts fair is also taking place on Saturday, this one at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. Admission to the center will be free.
Anonymous donor returns Tlingit treasures to Heritage Institute
Speaking of museum quality art, the Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau is walking in the clouds over the recent gift of 18 Native cultural objects dating at least to the early 1900s.
The unnamed donor, from Michigan, gave the collection to a Native woman in the Lower 48 with instructions to send it home -- to the Native people of Southeast Alaska, according to a press release.
"We have absolutely no information other than what the collector said -- that it was from Southeast Alaska, they were Tlingit objects and he wanted them to be returned home," institute president Rosita Worl said.
The collection includes some very important ceremonial items, said Worl, who added that she was "absolutely stunned" by the donation. "I did not know that it would have these very significant pieces -- a clan hat, three rattles -- very magnificent pieces," she said.
It's unusual for private donors to part with objects of this caliber because they often fetch large sums of money at auction.
The institute was not able to obtain provenance on the pieces, but the hat may be a couple of hundred years old.
"We have absolutely no information other than what the collector said," Worl said.
While this story comes with a happy ending, things are somewhat less certain concerning other Tlingit objects currently in Pennsylvania. That story in tomorrow's Daily News.
Filmmaker's work shows at museum
The Anchorage Museum's latest artist-in-residence, L.A. filmmaker Charles Burnett, a winner of the McArthur "Genius" award, is in town until Dec. 18. Among his projects is mentoring two teens from Nikolai.
In collaboration with Mediaction, a nonprofit educational film group, the museum is bringing Joricha Thomas and Patricia Alexia, who collaborated on a film titled "A Portrait of Nikolai," to be shown during the Anchorage International Film Festival next month.
In association with the festival, the museum will show two of Burnett's films, "Nightjohn," which New Yorker magazine called "the best American movie of 1996" and "Glass Shield," featuring rapper Ice Cube.
Admission to the films -- "Nightjohn" screens at 7 p.m. Thursday, "Glass Shield" at 7 p.m. Dec. 9 -- is free, but tickets are recommended. Get yours online at anchoragemuseum.org. There will be an artist reception after this Thursday's showing. The museum is located at 625 C St.
Student directors at work
The University of Alaska Anchorage student directing class will showcase scenes from William Shakespeare, Euripides, Tom Stoppard, Tennessee Williams and more over two evenings, at 7 p.m. this Monday and Tuesday. The event will take place in the Harper Studio Theatre, in the UAA Fine Arts Building, and admission is free.
Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.
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