MyHydaburg.org

Vicki LeCornu has been weaving in the Haida way for twenty-five years.   Her Haida name is Gowdaa, and she belongs to the Eagle-Beaver/Frog/Sculpin clans.  Committed to her craft and her community, Vicki is a driving force, a sharp mind and a Haida woman passionate about the rights, pride, and culture of her people.  She knows the integral nature of cultural knowledge, and is active in various community endeavors.  Vicki has worked not only as an artist, but in the areas of subsistence, language revitalization, and city as well as tribal administration.

Vicki remembers her first exposure to Haida weaving, watching her Naan Jesse Natkong when she was young.  She recalls that Natkong was very traditional, and wouldn’t speak while she was weaving, so Vicki just watched.  When Vicki learned to weave herself, it was from renowned weavers Delores Churchill and Selina Peratrovich.  These fine women taught her not only technique, but the demeanor necessary to be a strong weaver.  She recalls Churchill telling her class, “If you don’t have the humility to listen, you’ll be a really slow artist.”  The humility to listen, and by extension learn, is a quality Vicki exercises as she creates her woven works of art – always aware that there is, “a lot to be learned, [weaving] is no simple thing”.

In fact, simply gathering the necessary materials can be an extensive and fairly costly process.  When weaving cedar, either Vicki or her children go out to gather, strip and prepare it to be woven.  When weaving spruce root, which Vicki prefers but which is less available around Hydaburg, she has to look all the way to Juneau for the fine material.  And of course, once the supplies are gathered and prepared, determining and executing the design is an endeavor with its own difficulties and rewards.  Still, it is one that Vicki treasures and she understands how it relates to the greater challenges facing the Haida.

Vicki has been a weaver about the same amount of time she has been concerned with subsistence rights for her community and her people.  Now the Hydaburg city clerk, she served two terms on the federal subsistence board, battling for subsistence and customary trade rights.  Moreover, Vicki holds avid convictions when it comes to language revitalization, and sees Haida art and language revival as intertwined efforts.  She worries over what she sees as a sort of “self-hate” in modern Haida culture, born of long histories of belittlement and the denial of our rights.  For this reason, she knows that “language revitalization must be inclusive”.  She works for a future where Haida remember our pride and our strength, and she notes that for this to be realized, “language and art and subsistence must be brought up together”.

In the meantime, Vicki continues to practice her weaving, always conscious of the cultural context within which the art form exists.  All weaving designs have meaningful names and many, particularly hat designs, have stories.  Symbolic meaning exists in the style and method of the weaving, but the particular stories have specific, inherited cultural value.  Vicki reveals the stories behind the weave only to customers once they’ve purchased the piece – a sort of bonus for the buyer, but also a way to protect the stories and their meaning from becoming overexposed or diminished.  Having the greatest respect for the oral tradition, Vicki knows that there are some things that must be remembered, but cannot be written.

However, LeCornu does not view Haida a weaving as a closed art form, inaccessible to new life or innovation.  On the contrary, she views weaving as a connection – not only to the past – but to the future as well.  “Basketry is a graphic language,” she says, and she talks about the mathematical processes involved in adding to and maintaining a design.  She recalls having to reacquaint herself with algebra as she became a weaver, and ruminates over the possibilities of using technology to enhance, promote, and protect the art form of Haida weaving.

Along these lines, Vicki is now diving into e-commerce, posting her work in online marketplaces such as eBay.  Through this, she hopes to gain greater exposure – for herself and her art form – and already there has been response to her beautiful and careful weaving.  Ultimately, Vicki’s work is much like the artist herself – rooted in tradition but also adventurous.  Specific and conscientious in its form, but inextricably linked to the larger body that is Haida culture.

Vicki can be commissioned for special weaving projects –  to commission a basket, hat, or other piece from Vicki, please contact her through the Hydaburg Business Center