Caroline Parker Didn't Ask for This
velvet, annuity cloth, calico, beading thread, birch branches, home tanned deer hide
2022-2023
Permanent Collection of Onohsagwë:ë' Seneca-Iroquois Museum, Ohi:yo', Allegany Territory, Seneca Nation of Indians
Made of annuity cloth gifted from Renee (wolf clan, Seneca from Ohi:yo) and Bruce Abrams (turtle clan, Seneca from Ohi:yo) and their children’s allotments, the flower-like pattern references the celestial tree of the Haudenosaunee creation story found not only across Haudenosaunee design today, but on the skirt beaded by and worn by Caroline Parker (wolf clan, Tonawanda Seneca) in a now famous photo. Though her beadwork was on navy wool cloth, as was the fashion of the time, the velvet used in this piece references the velvet often used to make Haudenosaunee skirts historically and today. The annuity cloth strips, remnants from the construction of a dress and apron used for artistic purposes by the artist, were ripped into strips and delicately hand stitched to the velvet.
Calico backs the velvet piece alluding to the calico fabrics also used in Haudenosaunee clothing historically and today. It is also the same fabric used in the construction of dresses by the artist for personal use and artistic use.
The velvet, calico and annuity cloth centerpiece is bordered by home tanned deer hide. The top piece of hide was worked on by multiple people in community workshops. A hole stitched closed for smoking the hide is visible nodding to the process and the handworked moments that make this relational process beautiful. Both deer hides used were harvested by Jason Corwin (Deer Clan, Seneca Nation).
The birch branches are collected from the family land of Chelsey Bouchard (Six Nations Mohawk) on their family lands. The branches are lashed together with lightly smoked home tanned deer hide (the second hide the artist ever completed on their own) while Nymo beading thread stretches the centerpiece to the birch frame reminiscent of the ways in which deer hides are stretched and fastened to frames as part of the hide tanning process.
This piece is a meditation on the tension of treaties, on tradition, on the ever shifting material culture that comprises who we are - ever changing but also distinctly of our nations, of our communities, of our clans and of this land.
The ripping of the annuity cloth remnants to create the skydome and celestial tree pattern acts as a nod to the ways in which across communities we have often had to take what scraps we have left as treaty after treaty is disregarded and violated to continue to build something beautiful, powerful, new, and imbued with the stories of our connection to place, to one another, to the natural world we rely on, in the face of settler-colonial onslaughts.
The piece’s title, Caroline Parker Didn’t Ask For This comes from a conversation between the artist and their partner. As the artist reflected on the power of our Haudenosaunee material culture to hold our stories, to bring to life our relationships and responsibilities, Caroline Parker’s efforts to act as an ambassador through her beadwork and other material items came to the forefront. While her dress, her image, and this now ubiquitous pattern of the celestial tree design on Haudenosaunee style wrap skirts has influenced not only Haudenosaunee design for generations, but has formed the image of Haudenosaunee women, of Seneca women, for non-Native audiences as well.
