ORONO — The Wabanaki Winter Market, an annual celebration of art created by Wabanaki artists, will return with one-of-a-kind artwork for sale from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 10 at the University of Maine Collins Center for the Arts.
This year marks the 28th anniversary of this signature holiday event, hosted by the UMaine Hudson Museum and the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, and supported in part by the Onion Foundation. The market will feature over 30 Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Maliseet, and Mi’kmaq artists who create brown ash and sweetgrass baskets, birchbark containers, and jewelry, among other art forms. MIBA participants include new and nationally award-winning basket weavers.
The Wabanaki Winter Market also includes a performance of Penobscot songs by Kelly Demmons, a brown ash pounding exhibition by Mi’kmaq artist Eldon Hanning, a children’s brown ash bookmark workshop by Penobscot weaver Pam Cunningham and drumming by the Burnurwurbskek Singers. Additionally, there will be book signings for “Still They Remember Me” by authors Carol Dana, Penobscot language master, and Margo Lukens, UMaine English professor, and for “Night of the Living Rez” by Morgan Talty, UMaine assistant English professor.
“The Hudson Museum is excited to host the full-scale return of this in-person opportunity to celebrate Wabanaki artists and their extraordinary art,” says museum Director Gretchen Faulkner. “In addition to one-of-a-kind art, visitors can learn about Wabanaki history and culture through demonstrations, music, a children’s workshop, drumming and dancing, and exhibits in the Hudson Museum.”
The schedule of events is online at https://umaine.edu/hudsonmuseum/event/2022-wabanaki-winter-market/. To request a reasonable accommodation, contact the museum at 207-581-1904.
Also of interest to visitors to the show, the Minsky and Merritt galleries are featuring exhibits of Wabanaki artwork. A collection of Wabanaki brown ash and sweetgrass baskets and basket making tools from the Leo and Florence Shay Collection will be on exhibit in the Merritt Gallery.
The Minsky Gallery is showcasing works by Indian Island School students in grades 5–8, with artists from each grade using different printmaking techniques. Fifth-graders created hand-printed and hand-colored Plexiglass etchings of shamans and medicine people. Sixth-graders made portraits colored with watercolor paint after they were hand-printed. Seventh-graders made self-portraits using linoleum block prints. Eighth-graders used techniques pioneered by Andy Warhol to make self-portraits that were screened over watercolor paint.
