Pardue's "Woven Rainbow" is a tiny, lidded trinket basket of beach grass, raffia, cotton, embroidery, thread and dye. Kelly Church, an Ottawa and Chippewa weaver from Michigan, used strips of black ash and dye to fashion a bristling, bright red basket in the form of a giant strawberry. Julia Parker, a Kashaya Pomo and Coast Miwok artist, and her daughter, Lucy, who live in Yosemite Valley, combined glass beads and abalone shell with native grasses in gift baskets.
"Heritage and Hi-tech," a basket of waxed linen, glass beads and dye by Emarthle-Douglas, may not attract much attention because it looks like an ordinary bowl. But in a procession of little figures woven around the sides, Native American horseback riders and pedestrians talk on cellphones, write text messages and play video games.
"I got the idea at a pow wow," she says. "You see all the native people dressed in their regalia, but the kids are texting and some of the adults are on cellphones. It's a mix of both worlds."
As Pardue puts it, "culture is evolving."
So are attitudes about displaying Native American art. The tendency to present it as part of a living culture instead of remnants of a long-gone way of life, emerged with a splash in 2004, when the National Museum of the American Indian opened in Washington, D.C. With exhibits shaped by many consultants, the museum has a mission of "advancing knowledge and understanding of the Native cultures of the Western Hemisphere, past, present and future, through partnership with Native people and others."