Claiming Space: Voices of Urban Aboriginal Youth, until Jan. 4, 2015 at the O'Brian Gallery in UBC's Museum of Anthropology. More info at moa.ubc.ca/claimingspace
Danielle Morsette's traditional artistic creations are a methodical process that starts with a visual idea in her mind, which she translates to paper, then computer.
"I take it onto an Excel sheet so I can figure out the exact numbers of my patterns so it's an exact visual aid of what my piece will be like," says Morsette. "There's quite a bit of math involved with pieces because you have to know the number count for individual triangles or any other shape that will do. And then from there, I'll pick out my colours and then start weaving."
Morsette, 26, is a Coast Salish weaver. Her work is part of the Claiming Space: Voices of Urban Aboriginal Youth exhibition, taking place at the O'Brian Gallery in UBC's Museum of Anthropology until Jan. 4, 2015.
The exhibit includes more than 28 artists between the ages of 15 and 25 from Canada, the United States, Norway and New Zealand, and "looks at the diverse ways that these young people are asserting their identity and affirming their relationship to both urban spaces and ancestral territories." Claiming Space is broken down into five focus areas: The Indigenous Sprawl, We are Culture, Adapting our Traditions, The Gaze and We are the Keepers. Morsette has two pieces on display, Reflecting Mountains and Coast Salish Potlatch Dress. "One is a completely wool skirt and cape and the other one is a cedar bark dress with a wool panel down the front," she says. "The cedar bark dress - that's the first time I've ever worked with cedar on such a big project."
Along with Morsette's weaving, the show also features new media, film, fashion, photography, painting, performance, creative writing and traditional art forms.
"Its not every day where there's an exhibition dedicated to young artists who most likely are not very known to the public or to the art world," says Morsette. "I was overjoyed completely to be a part of it, still am. It's a unique exhibition that only comes around every once in a while."
Morsette, a North Vancouver resident and member of both the Suquamish Tribe from Washington State and Stó:lo Nation from Chilliwack, says the exhibit was important to her because there was very little representation from Coast Salish weavers. "I believe I might have been the only one," she says. "It's like an introduction to the art world. UBC, in a way it's like the premier museum for First Nations art in B.C. I'm so excited to be a part of that because it's major."
Morsette's main focus right now is creating wearable textiles. "It's like traditional-inspired clothing used for ceremonial purposes," she says. "Eventually I'd kind of like to branch out and do something different." Coast Salish weaving is limited to geometric patterns, or anything with a straight edge, says Morsette, and so her next goal is to learn a Northern-style of weaving from the Haidas and Tlingits called Chilkat, which includes animal designs.
"I'd eventually like to be one of the first to do Salish design that's not geometric," she says. "So like the graphic artists who do eagles and thunderbirds and bears, that kind of design is what I'd like to translate onto weaving because that's something I haven't seen before." Morsette was introduced to weaving by Majorie Lawrence of the Tulalip Tribe in 2003, learning basic headbands and small purses. She has also been a student of her mentor, Virginia Adams from the Suquamish Tribe and Marcie Baker, from the Squamish Nation.
Morsette got her first major commission in 2010 when she created her first blanket, and has been consistently weaving ever since.
Her work was featured in the Suquamish Museum in 2012 and at the University of Washington's Burke Museum in 2013. She was also a recipient of the YVR Art Foundation Scholarship in 2012, which paved the way to her inclusion in the Claiming Spaces exhibition.
"My cedar dress that I made for that grant was displayed in the airport over at YVR and Pam Brown, the curator (of Claiming Spaces), she had seen that in her travels and she contacted me on Facebook and asked me to submit my work so that I could be a part of the exhibition," she says.
Some of the pieces that Morsette weaves can take an extensive amount of time to create, with larger, more major pieces lasting over the course of a year.
"I'll give myself that much time but it will be as much work as I can put into it," she says. "But for smaller pieces, like a small shawl, would take me maybe two months."
Materials used vary depending on the project, but Morsette says she initially used a synthetic wool mix for all of her creations.
"I decide on materials on basically what I can purchase," she says. "I buy commercial spun yarn in whatever colours I feel blend together well. I'm a little bit more contemporary with my colour choice."
Other materials require a little more work. When using cedar bark, it must first be pulled off the tree and then aged for about a year, says Morsette, to let all the sap dry out. The bark is then cut into strips, the width of which depends entirely on the weaver's preference.
"From there you'd have to peel the layers individually," she says. "When it's wet it's more malleable to work with and depending on how soft you would like it, you can pound it."
Morsette says she's made so many potlatch headbands they probably number in the hundreds. She's also made about 40 other commissioned individual pieces for personal regalia, including skirts, tunics, dresses, blankets and shawls.
"I've been given free reign in most of my commissions, it's like they'll tell me a colour and kind of an idea of what they want, but usually it's up to me," she says. "I haven't really had anyone who told me exactly what they wanted, it's just something they saw of mine and said 'I like that, can you do that for me?' But usually I tend not to recreate something, so most of my work you can tell it's by me but it's not an exact duplication. I prefer to keep them unique."
All of Morsette's pieces are done completely by hand.
"The most challenging part is probably keeping the tension equal and the design," she says. "The tension is everything because you want it to be even."
Morsette's creations have garnered even further attention, including a private gallery on Vancouver Island that has shown interest in her cedar bark dress, though she's not sure she will sell it because "it's a unique piece."
"One of my first works, the one that's all wool, that was exhibited in the Suquamish Museum and from there it went to UBC. That's my personal regalia so I won't be selling that," she says. "But we'll see once the exhibit's over, if it wants to travel again then it will."
The MOA exhibit title, Claiming Space, rings a personal note with Morsette.
"I moved here in 2010 from Washington State and so for me to be able to focus on my weaving completely as a stay-at-home mom/artist, in an essence I feel like I've kind of claimed space by creating these pieces," says Morsette. "More people have become aware of who I am as an artist, as a weaver in Vancouver and in Washington State."
