Collections Spotlight with Melissa Shaginoff

During the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown and through the reopening afterward, the Coe Center partnered with First American Art Magazine to present an interactive Zoom series in which Native artists discussed artworks in the Coe Collections. Collections Spotlight brought deep dives into objects from the Coe collection to the public from the artist’s perspective. These events were free and open to the public.

Melissa Shaginoff is part of the Udzisyu (caribou) and Cui Ui Ticutta (fish-eater) clans from Nay’dini’aa Na Kayax (Chickaloon Village, Alaska). She is an Ahtna and Paiute person, an artist, a social activist, and currently the curator of Alaska Pacific University’s Art Galleries. 

Her work is shaped by the structure and processes of the Dene potlatch. In 2021, Melissa will participate in two international residencies in Canada and Sweden to explore conversation as artistic practice.

Shaginoff identifies the technique used to create this object as quill loom work, which is not a common practice. She speaks to the importance of porcupine quillwork in Dene and Ahtna cultures.

Traditionally, a quill loom would have been created from a stretched willow branch. The warp and weft were likely sinew pre-contact; the quills could be dyed with materials such as ochre. The piece is more contemporary; the beads on the object’s edges are one indication of this.

This is a wool bag with moose beard hair used to tuft the floral design elements. Shagnoff says that beard hair is used because the protein in the beard hair is different, making it easier to dye. She has also used caribou hair to tuft with, and describes that caribou have thinner hide and softer fur. She also describes the process of creating the tufts, mentioning that this is a messy process.

Shaginoff shares that this bag is a more contemporary style of Dene regalia, as the floral beadwork pattern was introduced later with Russian trade. Pre-contact designs were more geometric.

She also highlights Emma Hildebrand as a talented tufting artist from her area to look up.

Shaginoff says the quiver is very similar to the Kenai/ Denina territory. It has red ochre with a pictograph of animals/caribou, which is seen on other similar quivers. She stresses the importance of this type of pictograph to contemporary Denina culture.

Shaginoff notes it appears to have been used due to the singed part of the quiver. She says the type of hide is easy to note it is caribou skin as it is thinner than moose hide. She says, although the Coe Center records that note that the triangles are tipis, this is likely wrong as Dene homes were subterranean, so they are likely something else. As part of the discussion about the ochre triangle shapes on the quiver, there is also a discussion about the importance of indigenous people having access to collections and object records, and how correcting information is an important part of that process.

Shaginoff calls this a puberty necklace, which would be gifted to a woman by a man in her family and kept for her whole life. The comb is a hollow swan wing bone that the woman would use to drink water.

Women in the Dine culture are considered powerful beings, and they can change the luck of a village. They are the most powerful during their period. Melissa shares that the materials would be shared if the person was considered a good person, and the women would use the necklace in their seclusion during their cycle to protect/signal others. The necklace has a comb and an awl that the wearer would use. Melissa has seen other objects used, like needles or coins. The tusk is a symbol of wealth and can be given during potlatches to other clans. She notes the temporal nature of materials/belongings in her culture and how objects, including the puberty necklace, would be passed on.