 So this is our last day together, and it's a day in which we, I think, finally truly all come together and share our experiences through our scenarios and so on, and we'll hear from our wonderful elders. We're going to share their experiences with us. But to begin this morning as well, John, my good friend, Klaels, is going to talk about, and and his friend from Oregon, Chris, is going to talk about the button blank you've seen here all. So is everybody smudged? Who wishes to be smudged? And I guess we will, we will proceed. In the back of the room on that side are sacred objects that have been brought in, and Verna brought, as you know, as she discussed yesterday, the canoe and snowshoes. I brought a button blanket from SkiddiGid, which is a brand new gift to me for my birthday. I hit the big 7-0 on, what was it, Saturday? I forgot already. And the artist who made that button blanket, it's an Eagle blanket because I'm Eagle clan, Haida, took five years to do it. She was my teaching assistant when I taught grade 9, 10 and 11 in 1990, and has been a dear friend ever since and quite the artist. But you know, I was thinking about things Haida. We're Eagle clan. And every morning when I worked on Haida Gwai, I worked for the, as the First Nations Education Coordinator for the Islands. I would stop by my elder's house, Pearl Pearson, for whom that drum back there is made with the Hummingbird, her favorite crest. And I would just sit at her kitchen table and she would talk. And in those journeys I would go around the world. I'd learn what was sacred and what wasn't, what was dear to our hearts of our people and what wasn't. I learned the good. I learned some of the things that were not good. I learned how my heart needed to be, to live a good life. And this is the power of our elders as they pass along, what they pass along. This was my birthday present from Chris Kibbe from Oregon, who was my teaching assistant in high school. Where we conspired to teach English to students who couldn't teach English, couldn't understand English. And to teach Spanish to students who didn't realize they'd be learning Spanish to students in the same classroom. I would do the, I'd do Shakespeare in English. She would translate the Shakespeare lessons in Spanish. Students who could not write a Spanish essay because they were on the English side of the classroom would get extra points if they could find somebody on the Spanish side to translate their essay for them. Students on the Spanish side of the classroom would get extra points if they'd go over the other side and find somebody to translate it into English for them. It worked very well. The beginning of the term started out with a class separated. Latino on one side and Anglo on the other. By the end of each term they were blended together because they helped each other. So Chris is a filter and now a maker of regalia for a high domain in this one. It's an Eagle Plan like it. So as John mentioned he's Eagle Plan and this this project started in the early 90s. And it came about because John was teaching this book. I heard the owl call my name and it's a write-up of a priest that goes to live in a Bacutal village and this is kind of the story of those interactions. And he brought in a button blanket. At the same time that John was teaching at high school he was teaching at one of our local universities and working on his doctorate and he brought in this beautiful button blanket and John's Lakota name is medicine horse. And his students at the university made him a button blanket with a horse in the middle of it as his crest. Well on Haida why they don't have any horses. Are not a traditional Haida crest. It was a beautiful blanket. But the part that was really sad for me was that these students who loved him dearly. I mean clearly they did or they would not have taken the time to do this made him this beautiful blanket that he could never use. And he brought it in and he showed it to the students and I'm thinking to myself this man has done so much not only for these students here at the high school but for his own community. He studied anthropology and archeology. He would go up in the summers to Haida why and do archeological work. We were in Newport Oregon on the coast below Portland. And he developed a recording system. There were elders in the village that were teaching the Haida language to students. But from his perspective it was a little frustrating because they taught the same vocabulary over and over again. And they were just teaching the words without teaching the cultural components of the words. And he developed a recording system to record the elders so that they would be able to document the language. And then expand the Haida Heritage Language Project which he and a partner helped develop the curriculum. They developed the curriculum for this language project. And I'm like he has done so much for the community. He deserves to have a blanket of his own that he can wear and hopefully wear with pride. But that he can wear in his traditional environment when he goes back for potlatches. Which is a big piece. Thus the project was born. Okay so I'm a native Oregonian that has lived all over the US. I knew absolutely nothing about the culture. Nothing about making button blankets. John shows me this picture in this book. It's a book by Hilary Stewart about Northwest Coast art. And he goes I really like this eagle. And it was an eagle drawn by a friend of his named Bill Reed. Beautiful eagle. And he goes this eagle has all the elements of traditional Haida art. I'm like cool. So unbeknownst to John a couple years later I bought my own copy of the book. Took it in and had this copying company make this giant poster of this eagle. So that I could use it as a pattern to make John a button blanket. Fast forward 20 years. And okay it's time to make John's button blanket. He's not getting any younger than me. If I'm gonna do this I need to do it while I can still move a needle, right? And so I acquired a lot of books and read a lot about Haida culture. John kept saying I want a traditional blanket. Well traditional blankets were made out of cedar bark. And I'm like okay where am I gonna find some pounded cedar bark? And then I'm reading and during contact times the Hudson's Bay Company brought in Hudson's Bay blankets. And so the Haida people started using they would wrap themselves in the wool blankets. I'm like wool I can find wool. So one of the forms of wool that they referred to was melting cloth. And Benny was talking about melting cloth because it's a beautiful vest that she was wearing that had all the invertebrates made out of melting cloth. Okay and John says okay well blue and black are traditional with red so I think I want a blue one. Alright so I go to the fabric store and I buy blue melting cloth. And red melting cloth. And then he's like well they don't really use wool anymore. I'm like great I can use this to make a suit or something you know. It's enough yardage. And so then he's telling me yeah they use this super suede. And I told them I was gonna talk about it so just ignore the looks on his face because you know. I'm like searching online. I go into my local fabric store and they're like super suede. We've got suede but it's not called super suede. And I'm like well you know this is supposed to be traditional. I need to use the right kind of fabric. No super suede anywhere. Not online. Not in any of the fabric stores. And I'm calling all over the country. You know. Have you ever heard of super suede? No. And I'm like John could you please. And part of the person who's trying to learn about this right. That I don't know anybody on Hide and Why. I only know John. But I know that he has people in his family that have done this. One of them is quite well known. And I'm like couldn't you ask Stephanie. And he goes no I can't ask Stephanie because if I asked Stephanie. She's gonna feel really bad that I didn't ask her to make the blanket for me. And I'm like well couldn't you tell Stephanie. You didn't ask me either. I volunteered. Yeah. And no we can't do that. Let me talk to my cousin Pearl. You know. Well Pearl is 91 now. And I don't really know if Pearl's ever made a button blanket. I'm gonna assume that she has. But I don't know that for sure. But anyway you know. He always tells people that it took me five years to do this project. But he never explains why. Eventually he comes back with well maybe the name of this stuff is ultra suede. Really really expensive. But he doesn't say how expensive. And so I call around and yeah I get this fabric store in Portland. And yeah we sell ultra suede. But it's 90 bucks a yard. And I knew I needed like six yards of it right. So I'm like okay that's not a problem. I need black and I need red. And they're like well which red. And I'm like well I need kind of like a cherry red. Oh we've got that. And I'm like well could you send me a swatch of it. Or a swatch of a couple different colors of red. Cause look around. I mean there's people wearing red. There's red. There's red. You know there's some red in that skirt. Or there's red over there. You know there's a lot of different kinds of red. And so oh yeah yeah we can send you a swatch. And the swatch never came. That was another part of the problem. And so then eventually I get the fabric. Okay I'm ready to move forward. So I pull out this copy of this Bill Reed eagle. This eagle has gone from Salt Lake back to Newport. Then to Salem down to Eugene. And I'm like okay I've got this pattern and I'm ready to go. And John's like you can't use that. I'm like why. And it's private property. It belongs to Bill Reed's family. Bill Reed has since passed away but it's his drone. And his family, his wife and his foundation hold the right to that design. And if we want to use that design we have to pay for the right to use it. So then he tells me you need to draw your own design. And I'm like I don't know anything about it. I can look in the books and oh that looks really beautiful. And I'm like well could you help? And he goes well I'm not an artist. It talks about the artist whether they're male or female drawing out the design and then the blanket maker taking that design and creating the blanket from that. So I'm like okay this looks like a one woman show. But I didn't grow up in the culture. And so I had to learn, excuse me as I move forward. So these are all traditional forms. And each of the forms has its own name. So this is a U shape. By having this in the middle of it it turns it into a split U. Both of those are traditional shapes. This little thingy down here is called a flicker tip. So it turns the U shape into a particular type of feather, right? This is a regular U shape. This thing here is called an oval. And so for me when I had been creating drawings in the past I had an image in my mind. I would draw the outline of it. And then I would fill in the space. So I'm like looking at hundreds of pictures of eagles in flight. Eagles landing. Okay I can do this. And I draw one that kind of looks like the Imperial Russian one. I draw the one that kind of looks like the German thing and I'm like no this isn't working. And when I draw I tend to draw things that look very natural in nature. And so that's why my research was from all of these photographs of beautiful bald eagles, right? But it wasn't working and I would email these drawings to John and he would say it's flat. And I'm like well duh it's a drawing on a flat piece of paper. Of course it's gonna be flat. And he's like well it doesn't work for me. And I'm like I need feedback. I need critical constructed feedback so that I can change what I'm doing. He goes I don't like it. The shapes are wrong. And I'm like okay which shape. And it doesn't have any tension. And I'm thinking to myself tension. It's tension. And I'm like John what's tension? And all he could say was like it's like a ball that is kind of squished. And I'm like okay. I've got a ball that's kind of squished, right? You know? It's not working. So then I learn about these. Actually I found these two books. One is learning by doing. And one is like learning by designing or something similar to that. They come from the Kwak-Wa-Ka-Wa perspective. So not the height of perspective. But at least one of them showed the different art forms. And so they showed north coast. Mid coast. South coast. Height is north coast. So I could look at the different styles and they would talk about which style it was. Was it shimshian? Was it cleanage? Was it Kwak-Wa-Ka-Wa? Kwak-Wa-Ka-Wa. Was it like Bella Bella or Bella Cooler or whatever? Was it Haida? So I focused in on the Haida ones and learned to draw these shapes. And once I made the transition in my head and figured out what they do is they take these shapes and fill in the space with the shapes to create the design. And once I had that kind of straight in my brain then I was able to draw something that looked more correct. And so going back and forth with this wonderful communication that I have with this English language arts teacher or a reporter, I would be on the phone with them and oftentimes we'll use space time or Skype. And I'd go, Darlene, help! Darlene would have to join in the conversation and kind of interpret what we were each saying. It's like we were speaking foreign languages, right? But eventually we came up with this design that I could live with and that he could live with. And mind you, I've never done this before but this has been quite the research project, quite the learning experience for me. And so then once we had a design then he had to send it to the matriarch of his family, Pearl, his cousin Pearl. And so everything has to be approved. So that was another period of time. I'm like have you talked to Pearl about the design? Well first of all Pearl isn't online. So he either had to send the drawing by snail mail or by email to one of his cousins who would then at some point take it to Pearl's house. So sometime later we get approval for the design. So even though I'm the artist of this design, this design now belongs to John's family and no one else can use it, including me. Yeah. And so that part was good. And John the whole time has said this needs to be a traditional blanket. Well traditional blankets are all done by hand. So all of this is hand stitched. All of it. And you have buttons and I'm like so do the buttons go on the black? Do the buttons go on the red? I'm looking all over the internet. There is nothing online that tells me how to create a button blanket. There's no step-by-step instructions out there anywhere. Well while I was teaching I came across this book called The Button Blanket and it's about this little girl who is having a button blanket made for her by a family member and she's going to dance at the potlatch. And the tradition is that these blankets they're also called robes are danced into life, danced into being at a potlatch. So John is now on her band to dance at his next potlatch to give life to his room. Otherwise it wouldn't be a room with power. Have you seen you dance? I have seen you dance. You dance with a select's elder in your classroom. I know you can do it if you stop looking at it. Get the mind out of it. So anyway in that book it says you measure from the nape of the neck down to like about the ankles. So he's in Ottawa and I'm in Oregon. There's Darlene measuring John and it says from fingertip to fingertip which is pretty good from fingertip to fingertip. So that's how you get your measurements. In high art like I said they started out with cedar bark that they didn't decorate hardly at all they might have painted a little bit very, very early on. As the art form evolved it came into being that they fill up the space. This is a blank canvas a space to be filled. And so this design goes from edge to edge and pretty much from top to bottom not quite. And so I took an overhead projector and blew it up on my kitchen wall and traced it out on paper to get the pattern out. So then I have to wait for him to have these conversations about where the buttons go. And I'm like wanting to move forward. So I get the eagle cut out and I start doing all my stitching so the eagle is an applique that is stitched on first and then I get information about the buttons. Well you know the eagle part is already done and come to find out the buttons are supposed to be placed on the red. So in some places there's not very much red. So I took a little artistic license and did them like right on the edge. So yes they're on the red but they're a little bit on the black as well. It might not be perfect but for me it's a token of my esteem for John out of respect for who he is as a person and the work that he has done as now an elder in his community. But having done this work over a period of a few decades you know from the time that he found out that he was hiding and went to learn about his family and even though there may be some glitches on it like he wanted to honor his cousin Pearl and we did a hummingbird design in both of these ovals and we thought we had permission from Pearl to use the hummingbird but I don't know a year, year and a half, maybe two years later Pearl's like oh the hummingbird's not one of our crests we can't use it so we had to take the hummingbird off. Now this potlatch is a family gathering to talk about the family crest I'm hoping and praying that the hummingbird actually is one of their crest and although I really like these buttons because to me they represent the Trinity I'm hoping that at some point I'll be able to take these buttons off and replace them with the hummingbirds again. There you have it. So first of all those are not just regular buttons please talk about the buttons those are abalone buttons they are abalone shelves they are all shell buttons that I collected over a number of years to make sure I had enough and there are 1,400 of them some blankets have thousands of them it just depends on the detail they used to do very simple designs and they would use the shell buttons or they would use dintelia if you go to the museum you'll see buttons that have a mix so there are some blankets that have just dintelia there are some that have just buttons there are some that are a mix that was a whole other conversation it was as an honest this was the best I could do with this my first endeavor so I hope that he wears it with pride different size there is a company called Shells I have a Joanne's fabric store right next to my house so there is a company called Shells and they do a bag of half inch buttons and I don't know how many centimeters that translates to like two and a half maybe centimeters and then they do another bag that has mix sizes but you'll see some itty bitty buttons down here those were the hardest ones for me to find and I found them at another store called Handcock fabrics and they had a special order for me Joanne's also special order buttons for me these big ginormous buttons all came from a supply shop called Wandering Bowl that's in the New England or New York area and so they had a lot of different sizes and so I ordered a few buttons from them and just so buttons from different places and I'm sure that the people in the Pacific Northwest that make these on a regular basis know supply shops but I don't know any of those people and you know you don't feel comfortable calling up a Stephanie Price or a Dorothy Grant and say hey where do you get your supplies from it's not the right thing to do as you all know so I just did the best I could in getting the sizes that would work and this is all done with a string, a heavyweight Coats and Clark string that's an outdoor weight because I want it to last for a while and then what I did was you're supposed to sew the buttons on with a running stitch I don't know if you've ever seen any bead work where the knot comes undone and the beads go flying or the same thing strand of pearls so yes I sort of used a running stitch but what I did was I knotted after each button so with part of it doesn't come loose he won't lose all the buttons any other technical questions? are you going to write a book about your adventure with this? you know it's been suggested I'm in the middle of doing PhD I think you need a PhD of button well it's been suggested that I write a paper or a book about it that I switch my PhD from Latino student engagement to the process of making a button blanket by a complete novice anyone can take five years I'm not completely totally at a loss for words in all my life I have been honored in certain ways but the honored like this is beyond my dreams both between Chris and my wife and the work that went into it family approval of the crest it's an evil crest evil because the I forgot to say among the hyena we're all either eagle clan or raven clan and under those two clans are the other clans the wolf, the killer whale all grew under the two main crests so our family is evil the nostalotus clan it's an eagle clan it's a need to be an eagle design so pearl said that the what he's leaving out here is when he went to pearl for a design she gave him grizzly bear and he didn't want to use grizzly bear that's why he tells the eagle does anybody in the eagle clan can use eagle now you can go on so pearl approved Chris's use of the shapes are culturally flawless the tension in the design is like the eagle is almost flying is amazing in the eagle crest the beak cooks and that's the main difference because with the raven crest the beak is more straight other than that they're the same so this is classic eagle design approved by our families most certainly approved by my wife and I for what is more than 26 years of friendship loyalty friendship and where do you find that so thank you all very much for sharing in this celebration of 70 years of age and the fact that people sometimes really do love you the world is good and it's the right place to be thank you