Cherish Parrish Explained

Cherish Parrish
Birth Date:[1]
Nationality:Potawatomi-Odawa (American)
Known For:Basket making, birchbark biting

Cherish Nebeshanze Parrish (born 1989) is a black ash basket maker and birchbark biter.[2] She is a member of the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan and of Odawa descent.

Parrish is a sixth generation black ash basket weaver, having learned the craft from her mother, artist Kelly Church.[3]

Parrish was one of the recipients of the Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in 2006.[4] She also participated in the 2006 Smithsonian Folklife Festival as a "Next Generation Weaver".[5] Parrish won best of show in the 2012 Eiteljorg Museum Indian Market, representing the first time a basket had taken the top honor in that show.[6]

Using the pliable bark of black ash trees she harvests from the swamps of the Michigan wetlands, Parrish weaves tightly woven baskets.[7] [8] While she continues the tradition of free form weaving, her work was transformed with the introductions of weaving around a mold.[9] She also creates birchbark bitings in the tradition of the Anishinaabe of Michigan.

Parrish honors women by creating baskets that mimic the shape of women's bodies.[10] Her work The Next Generation—The Carriers of Culture, featured in the 2019 exhibition Hearts of our People, is a black ash basket that replicates the curves of a pregnant woman; the work was described by artist Jonathon Keats as embodying "the unity of utility and beauty by relating basket and belly, while simultaneously suggesting that the future of a people is borne through heritage as much as biology."[11]

Exhibitions

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Yohe . Jill Ahlberg . Greeves . Teri . Hearts of our people : Native women artists . 2019 . Minneapolis Institute of Art in association with the University of Washington Press . Minneapolis, Minnesota . 9780295745794.
  2. Web site: Carriers of Culture: Living Native Basket Traditions . Smithsonian Folklife Festival . Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage . 8 March 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090413224013/http://www.folklife.si.edu/festival/2006/Basketry/Participants/Great_Lakes.html . 13 April 2009 . 2006.
  3. Web site: Cherish Parrish . The Art of Kelly Church and Cherish Parrish . 17 February 2020.
  4. Public Programs Section of the American Folklore Society . 2006 Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeships . AFS Public Programs Bulletin . Spring 2006 . 23 . 51 . Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology at Western Kentucky University.
  5. Web site: Cherish Nebeshanze Parrish (Gun Lake Band of Potawatomi), Hopkins, Michigan . Carriers of Culture: Living Native Basket Traditions . 17 February 2020.
  6. Web site: Highlights from the 20th anniversary Indian Market & Festival . Eiteljorg Museum . 8 March 2020.
  7. News: Thackara . Tess . The Hand of Native American Women, Visible at Last . 17 February 2020 . The New York Times . 31 May 2019.
  8. Web site: Niemi . Paul . Weaving and Protecting a History: A Conversation with Basket-Maker Kelly Church . National Museum of the American Indian blog . 17 February 2020 . 14 March 2014.
  9. Web site: "Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists" Audio (Stop 4 - Cherish Parrish) . Smithsonian American Art Museum . 17 February 2020.
  10. News: Graham . Lester . Artisans of Michigan: Anishinaabe black ash baskets . 8 March 2020 . Michigan Radio NPR . 1 September 2017.
  11. News: Keats . Jonathon . A Spectacular Exhibit Of Indigenous Women Artists Counters 500 Years Of Exploitation And Ignorance . 8 March 2020 . Forbes . 10 June 2019.
  12. Web site: An Interwoven Legacy: The Black Ash Basketry of Kelly Church and Cherish Parrish . Grand Rapids Art Museum . 12 September 2021.

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