Folk Arts - Master Artist -Loa Ryan

Loa Ryan. Photo by Fritz Dent.

Loa Ryan is a member of the Tisimshian tribe and a master basket weaver. Ryan resumed the family basket weaving tradition that was last practiced by two of her great-grandmothers, who inspired Loa with their use of baskets to collect salmon and wild berries. Ryan learned her techniques from a Haida woman, Delores Churchill, who, fearing the tradition would be lost, took up Tsimshian basketry. Ryan is concerned with the lack of Tsimshian baskets in galleries, museums, and private collections. She believes the loss of traditional ceremonies and arts has affected this generation of Tsimshian people. She works, through teaching basket making, to revive interest within the urban Tsimshian community of their culture and heritage.

Like many coastal tribes, the Tsimshian tribe of the northern Pacific coast of Alaska and British Columbia, traditionally used cedar baskets for storing and transporting goods. Today, Tsimshian baskets are only used for ceremonies, display pieces, and gifts. Native American basketry in general has suffered as a result of the encroachment of non-Native culture. Mass-produced storage containers have replaced handmade baskets in their domestic role. Materials needed to weave these baskets have become increasingly more difficult to gather, both because deforestation has destroyed plants and also because basket makers are restricted from lands which bear the necessary types of vegetation.

As a recipient of a 1998 Apprenticeship grant, Ryan taught apprentice Jackie Jainga-Hyllseth traditional Tisimshian weaving. Jainga-Hyllseth has been weaving for over eight years, and took her first class in cedar basket weaving in 1993. She is a member of a large family, and Ryan sees this as an opportunity to pass the art form down in the traditional way: within the family, to her younger relatives. The techniques Ryan is teaching Jainga-Hyllseth cover the process of weaving, from calculating and identifying growing areas of the materials they will use, to methods to be used in the twining of lidded baskets, different approaches specific to materials such as seaweed and spruce root, and the procedures for finishing baskets.

As a recipient of a 2002 Apprenticeship grant, Ryan taught Mona Kinder Tisimshian weaving. Mona Kinder, also a member of the Tsimshian tribe, lives in Silverdale, Washington, but is originally from Metlakatla, Alaska. Her desire to learn traditional basket making started when she acquired baskets woven by her grandmother, Lucy Rainman, in the 1980s. In 2001, she began taking classes from Ryan in order to learn the art. While working together, Ryan will teach Kinder about the traditional, historic and pre-historic baskets of the Tsimshian people. The techniques Ryan will teach Kinder cover the process of weaving plaited baskets, creating traditional coastal hats, seaweed baskets, oolican baskets, spruce root baskets and gathering of materials, including cedar bark, maiden hair fern, canary grass, and spruce root. Ryan will also teach Kinder the historic names and basketry terms in the Tsimshian language.

As a recipient of a 2004 Apprenticeship grant, Ryan taught Inez Arlene, Sandra Polzin and Andrea Evans Tisimshian weaving. Loa Ryan taught the three women about the historic techniques of Tsimshian basket weaving. They learned how to gather the traditional materials including, red cedar bark, maidenhair fern, spruce root and various other grasses.