NORTHWEST COAST AND ALASKA NATIVE ART by Christopher PatrelloChristoph Heinrich

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310 OHQ vol. 122, no. 3 REVIEWS NORTHWEST COAST AND ALASKA NATIVE ART by Christopher Patrello foreword by Christoph Heinrich University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2020. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, 100 pages. $10.95 paper. This elegant guide is intended to accompany the recently redesigned galleries of Northwest Coast and Alaska Native art at the Denver Art Museum (DAM), which feature selections from the museum’s magnificent collection of historical and contemporary Native American art. Author Christopher Patrello, an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow in American Indian Art, was part of the team that redesigned and reinstalled the galleries, along with John P. Lukavic, DAM’s Curator of Native Arts. The book is appropriately dedicated to the late Nancy Blomberg who, as lead curator for Native Arts at DAM from 1990 until her too-early death in 2018, built on the museum’s long-standing reputation as a center for the appreciation of Indigenous art as fine art, rather than as “craft.” Northwest Coast and Alaska Native Art is written for a general, museum-going audience, and while the narrative corresponds with key groupings in the gallery, the book will be of interest even to those who are not able to visit the DAM in person. Patrello provides a brief overview of the Northwest Coast as a world art region, focusing on how social organization , ecosystems, art, and ceremony intersect. Each thematic section is introduced by a short explanatory text and followed by a first-person statement by a contemporary Northwest Coast or Alaska Native artist that elaborates on the section’s theme. At the beginning of the first section, “Sharing Knowledge,” Jaad Kuujus (Meghann O’Brien) emphasizes the intergenerational and multidisciplinary processes involved in learning to weave. Starting the book with weaving arts is commendable, as it places the art form most associated with women front and center, rather than on the margins. The section also includes work by Kwakwaka’wakw master carvers. The next section, “Tangible and Symbolic Wealth,” focuses on how the value of art within Northwest Coast communities is produced through ritual use, relationships, and reciprocity across a wide range of media. Marianne Nicolson (Kwakwaka’wakw) introduces the section with a carefully researched account of the “Welcome Figure” commissioned by Chief Johnny Scow around 1914 and its intended message of resistance to theft of Kwakwaka’wakw lands by white settlers. The third section, “Art and Language,” similarly covers a wide range of media from carvings to glass to button blankets and addresses the visual language of Northwest Coast art. American art historian Bill Holm (1925–2020) described Northwest Coast design elements such as these as “formline” (as well as other terms) in his highly influential 1965 publication (Holm 1965). In what may be the most important contribution to Northwest Coast and Alaska Native Art, artist Gwaii Edenshaw (Haida) discusses in a lead essay how artists are exploring Haida language terms, including the grammatical category of “Shape Classifiers,” to develop non-English-language nomenclature for Northwest Coast design elements. The “Alaska” section focuses on the theme of reciprocity among people, land, and the animals who share it, and is organized into two components : Honoring the Land and Honoring the Hunt. An interview with Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Inupiaq/Athabascan), renowned mixed-media artist who works with skin as a medium, anchors the section by reflecting on moving beyond oppositions of traditional and contemporary and toward recognizing the inseparable relationship between humans and all existence. The section is illustrated with a wide array of media, from whale bone and walrus ivory carvings to baleen baskets to wooden masks and marine mammal-skin garments. With a glossary and list of titles for further reading, this slim volume is accessible for readers new to Northwest Coast and Alaska 312 OHQ vol. 122, no. 3 art as well as instructive for curators and other interpreters of Indigenous arts about how to integrate voices of contemporary artists into museum publications. Rebecca J. Dobkins Willamette University STRUGGLE ON THE NORTH SANTIAM: POWER AND COMMUNITY ON THE MARGINS OF THE AMERICAN WEST by Bob H. Reinhardt Oregon State University Press, Corvallis 2020. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 232 pages. $29.95 paper. The natural beauty...