果冻传煤

By Francesca Du Brock, Chief Curator

Emma Hildebrand comes from a long line of Koyukon Athabascan women who 鈥渒new how to do pretty much everything that had to do with survival,鈥� including building cabins, fish wheels, and snowshoes, along with skills like tanning hides, skin sewing and beading. Hildebrand started learning from her mother at around age seven, beginning with simple projects like stringing beads and stitching on moosehide. She made gifts for her family, baby moccasins, barrettes, and earrings. In her late teens, she graduated to larger projects, creating a moosehide parka and a moosehide dress to participate in the Miss World Eskimo Indian Olympics pageant.

The artist with Audrey Armstrong at the Miss WEIO Pageant in 1981 (left). The artist (seated, with her daughter) and her family, including her mother, in 1994 (right).

Over the years, Hildebrand acquired skills in quillwork and caribou tufting from teachers Dixie Alexander and Nancy Fonicello鈥攖echniques she uses today to embellish her distinctive garments and accessories. As a teacher of Alaska Native arts and crafts, she鈥檚 travelled the state working with students and passing on valuable traditional knowledge. For her, 鈥渂eing able to continue the knowledge and the crafts through teaching is an honor for me. If someone hadn鈥檛 taught me, these skills would not be a part of my life鈥�I teach others so they can enjoy beadwork and crafting and we can continue to preserve our cultures.鈥�

Hildebrand teaching quillwork techniques at the 果冻传煤 Museum.

The materials Hildebrand uses are natural and come from the land. She has a network of friends that help her gather what she needs to make her work. After her mother passed away, she started getting tanned moosehide from her brother-in-law in Northway. She鈥檚 also learning to tan her own hides鈥攁 project she鈥檚 saving for the spring when the weather warms. She prefers not to kill live porcupines herself, so for quills, she keeps her eyes peeled while driving and if she finds a roadkill porcupine that hasn鈥檛 been too badly damaged, she stops to harvest the finest, unbroken quills. Friends and family bring her caribou hides, which she carefully scrapes, washes, dies, and prepares for tufting projects. What she doesn鈥檛 use herself, she sends out to artists across Alaska and Canada. This extended web of friends, family, and fellow artists involved in making and gathering materials is part of what makes Hildebrand feel connected to her practice and to her community, even during the isolation of the pandemic.

A caribou rendered in porcupine quills on the back of a moosehide vest and a tufted and quilled eyeglasses case.

For Hildebrand, this sense of connection is vital. She says: 鈥淚t鈥檚 not only an artwork, it鈥檚 a means of meditating. I sit and I create and I feel good about that, but I also think about family and about life and other things as I鈥檓 doing that. It gives me a connection to my ancestors, to people that have passed鈥︹�� After losing her daughter in 2018, Hildebrand found that her relationship to centuries-old cultural techniques and natural materials had a way of soothing her grief and grounding her: 鈥淎fter my daughter passed, it really helped me get back into life.鈥� Her work is a process of care that stretches both backwards and forwards through time.

Caribou bag with tufted wild rose pattern, 2015, and floral detail on a moosehide dress, created with natural-colored caribou hair, 2017.

Although making art has been an integral part of Hildebrand鈥檚 life since she was a youngster, it wasn鈥檛 until recently that she began to consider herself an artist. In 2005, after retiring from an 18-year career as the CEO and President of Northway Natives, Hildebrand moved to 果冻传煤 and began pursuing her art more seriously. As teaching jobs expanded along with opportunities to sell her work, she was delighted to find that she could support herself through making artwork. She says that demand for Alaska Native artwork is 鈥渆xploding鈥� now, but that back in early 80s when she was in school and beginning her practice, it didn鈥檛 seem like a viable career. Now, she sees people wearing her work, hanging it on their walls and adding it to their collections. While she admits that she doesn鈥檛 often think in terms of labels, the pleasure others take in what she makes has forced her to 鈥渁cknowledge that what I do is art and that people appreciate it as art. So yeah, I am an artist.鈥�

This winter, with support from The CIRI Foundation, the 果冻传煤 Museum will be hosting four virtual artists-in-residence. Follow Emma Hildebrand鈥檚 artwork and process through March. Check out her work @ejhildebrand99516 on Instagram and tune in to her livestream studio demo on April 5th at 12pm Alaska time on the 果冻传煤 Museum鈥檚 Facebook page.

Header image: Beaded flowers on moosehide.