East Texas Entertainment

By STEWART SMITH
Entertainment Editor

Witness the revival of a nearly extinct form of Native American craftwork as the Tyler Museum of Art presents "Cherokee Beadwork: Finding a Lost Art" and the works of artist Martha Berry.

The pieces on display will include handcrafted bandolier bags, moccasins, sashes and belts, along with photographs and ceramics. The bandolier bag is the most iconic of the Southeastern Woodlands style of tribal beadwork and was often given as a diplomatic gift to other chiefs or government representatives. Berry handcrafts them with genuine wool stroud cloth, silk and satin ribbon, linen linings and glass beads, each one displaying immaculately detailed patterns and motifs.

Berry is a Tyler resident, but was born and raised in northeastern Oklahoma by Cherokee/English/Scotch-Irish parents and is a registered tribal citizen of the Cherokee Nation. For many years, Berry said, she took her heritage for granted. But once her children had grown she began to discover the richness and importance of what her ancestors had crafted and channeled her affinity for needlework toward beadwork.

She soon discovered, though, that she was one of the few people in the world still dedicated to this specific type of beadwork.

"At the end of the 20th century, there were only a dozen people in the world who were masters of Southeastern tribal beadwork, that's tribes including Cherokee, Creek, Chocktaw, Chickasaw and Seminole," Berry said. "Of that dozen, only six were actual descendents of those tribes and of that six, only two were Cherokee. That was in the year 2000 when there were a quarter of a million registered tribal citizens of the Cherokee Nation."

Determined not to let this art form die, Berry took it upon herself to begin training students who could replicate the beadwork. She currently has four former students who are now on the verge of being considered masters of the art form, though it was initially a challenge overcoming the lack of knowledge most had regarding Cherokee beadwork.

"Most Cherokees didn't even know what their own traditional beadwork looked like. It was such a lost art form," Berry said. "So we had to do three things: We had to grow beaders. We had to grow collectors, people interested in purchasing it, and people who were brokers - galleries and museums who could bring creators and collectors together. And then, of course, we had to educate people as to what this beadwork looked like, because it is so vastly different from what you typically see when you see Native American beadwork."

Berry said the depiction of Native American dress has become greatly homogenized over the last century. Such generalizations and misconceptions greatly contributed to the decline in knowledge of and the ability to recreate Cherokee beadwork, she said.

"For a century now, people have been inundated with photographic images and painted images of Plains Native Americans. They wear beautiful beadwork and regalia with the women in leather dresses and the men wearing war bonnets. All of the powwow regalia grew out of the Plains traditions and the Southeastern people dressed differently," Berry said. "The men never wore war bonnets, they wore turbans. They wore bandolier bags, which were exquisitely beaded bags. Those are the most iconic and important pieces, because they considered them important."

Detail is of the utmost importance to Berry when crafting a piece of beadwork. The iconography used in these pieces was originally used to depict religious imagery, represent medicinal formulas or, in many cases, to perpetuate the natives' "old culture" that was in danger of being lost due to the influence of missionaries. All of Berry's bandolier bags employ the use of iconography, often to tell stories but, most importantly to evoke emotion.

"I really believe that this is not just a craft, that it is a fine art," Berry said. "If you do a bandolier bag right you can evoke emotion. And if you evoke emotion in the viewer, that is fine art no matter what your media is."

Berry will give a special gallery talk at 6 p.m. today at the Tyler Museum of Art. The full "Cherokee Beadwork: Finding a Lost Art" exhibit will open Sunday and continue through Aug. 15.

The Tyler Museum of Art is at 1300 S. Mahon Ave., adjacent to the Tyler Junior College campus off East Fifth Street. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday.

For additional information, call 903-595-1001 or visit www.tylermuseum.org.