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For Library of Congress Bicentennial
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Library of Congress, Congressional members were each asked to recommend at least one significant cultural event or tradition representative of his or her state or district. Senator Tim Johnson nominated Northern Plains Tribal Arts for this Local Legacies project, and his office is the coordinating hub.
Local Legacies materials and documentation will be placed in the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress. A significant portion of the materials will also be digitized and made available on the library's website.
Northern Plains Tribal Arts Council members John Day (Dean, College of Fine Arts, USD; and Director, University Art Galleries) and Meg Quintal (Institute of American Indian Studies [IAIS], USD) agreed to coordinate the project on a local level. Leonard Bruguier (Director, IAIS, USD) happily placed the facilities and resources of the South Dakota Oral History Center at their disposal.
After a great deal of preliminary work, graduate students Rebecca Anderson, Gerald Cournoyer, and Patty Kelley conducted taped interviews with Northern Plains Tribal Arts Council members, administrators, and artists during the 1999 Northern Plains Tribal Arts Juried Art Show and Market which ran from September 23rd through the 26th. Mark Derby (Director, Center for Instructional Design & Delivery, USD) videotaped segments of the event as well.
Back at the Oral History Center, graduate students, work-study students, and IAIS staff members went to work transcribing the interview tapes, collecting and reviewing hardcopy documentation, editing transcripts, recommending segments for inclusion in the final product, numbering and preparing tapes for digitizing by Mark Derby, along with myriad other tasks; meeting frequently with John Day and Meg Quintal all the while so that the December 1999 deadline could be met.
In the 1999 Northern Plains Tribal Arts program, Chair Thomas L. Rickers speaks of "the ways of design, traditional skills and…cultural memory" of the Northern Plains artists. It is our hope that these valued attributes will be honored, preserved, and presented in a respectful way through this important project.
[Ms. Patricia Kelley, author]
Photograph of Team Members Patricia
Kelley and Rebecca Terk-Anderson
Photograph of Pauline Pourier and Ivo
Mount
Photograph of Fern Marvin
Photograph of Leonard Bruguier
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14 February 2000, lrb