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In an effort to bring Alfred Kroeber's turn-of-the-century collections up to date, in1994 and 1995, research anthropologist Ira Jacknis began to collect contemporary carving from the Klamath River region of Northwestern California. Since the late 1960s, there has been an exciting revival of carving in the region. While there have been changes in life styles, many of the traditional forms of carving are still used, including mush paddles and spoons, canoes and pipes, made from elk antler, stone, and wood. And some carvings are now created as fine art. Jacknis acquired examples of many of these forms for the Museum.
In addition to several other carvers, Jacknis's collection focused on George Blake (Hupa/Yurok) and Frank Gist (Yurok), with whom he collaborated as co-curators on a Hearst Museum exhibition: The Carver's Art of the Indians of Northwestern California (August 23, 1995-February 2, 1996). Both of these artists visited the Museum in the fall of 1994 and the winter of 1995, selecting and documenting artifacts from the collections and consulting on their presentation in the exhibit. They also provided information about themselves and about their own works that had been acquired for the Museum's collections. Their comments were recorded on audio and video tape. Jacknis's research and collection focused on the history and developments in carving styles, as well as on the process of elk antler spoon carving, which had not been previously described in detail. Gist's complete process of carving a spoon was documented in videotape and in a series of uncompleted spoons, demonstrating the major stages in the sequence. This research was described in a publication, Carving Traditions of Northwest California and an edited version of the videotape, The Carver's Art of the Indians of Northwestern California (both, Hearst Museum, 1995).
"Acorn spoons and acorn paddles were probably the first things that I ever made as Indian art. I started back in the early 60s, when I was in high school. I was living with my aunt and uncle; it was their time to take the leadership role in the Deerskin Dance, and they didn't have baskets to do the cooking of the acorns and for eating in the bowls. My aunt started making baskets. I saw a bandsaw in the high school, and I thought I should be able to cut that angle out. And I knew at the time that my hands were kind of gifted for this. So I jumped into making acorn spoons, and it seemed to bloom from then on. I've always made acorn spoons, and still make acorn spoons. I enjoy it or I wouldn't keep doing it.
It wasn't until the early 80s that I made my first elk horn spoon. It just sort of dropped into my head one day. I'd heard where Homer Cooper [an important Yurok carver] told me to make it out of the bottom of the antler, and I still couldn't visualize in my head how that could happen. I was sitting in the [Hoopa] museum one day and I said, 'yeh, come right down the wall of that thing, the antler, and the base is here and cut that off, simple.' So I started making them, and I enjoy them." George Blake, 1995.
Unlike the pipes of the nineteenth century, these are turned on the lathe. "About four years ago I started making our pipes. It was told to me that when I'm making the pipes, I'm not to use them. Once I start using the pipes, then I can't make any more to sell." Frank Gist, 1995.
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