CR displays Native art

Works by art students in Hoopa are on display at the Del Norte campus of College of the Redwoods through February.

They have produced hundreds of colorful, eye-catching prints inspired by their native culture that are now on display at the CR Del Norte campus.

On Friday there was a reception for the exhibit, which will be up through February. The college is open weekdays only.

Several of the Nor-Cal Native Artists will be on hand Friday to discuss their work and their experiences with printmaking.

The art students at Klamath-Trinity have studied with associate art faculty  member Willa Briggs to learn basic drawing and design. Briggs encouraged the students to take their artistic interests and talents to the next level.

Briggs took her students to Crow’s Shadow Institute of Art at the Umatilla Confederated Tribes reservation near Pendleton, Ore., to learn printmaking. The students and their instructor learned the art of printmaking by master printer Frank Janzen.

With support from the Hoopa Valley Tribe and individual sponsors, Nor-Cal Native Artists brought Janzen’s expertise and printing equipment to Hoopa, where art students, community members and area artists participated in a printmaking workshop that yielded over 100 finished prints in two and a half days.

The artwork is “really quite neat,” said Del Norte campus Dean Anita Janis. The students are combining their traditional roots with a modern mode of artwork, printmaking, she said.

As supervisor of the Klamath-Trinity site, Janis has seen the student artists at work in Hoopa.

Capturing their native culture in an artistic way is inspiring and

`to the students as they can interpret their culture in their own way, Janis said.

“It generates a whole dimension of art,” she said.

While the artwork is printed on paper, each one is original, Janis said, likening them to paintings.

The group keeps growing as new students join. Students who have moved on to other education institutions remain involved in Nor-Cal Native Artists, she said. They hope to eventually sell their artwork and support the group, she said.

The Del Norte campus is in the process of re-establishing a club for American Indians to “call attention to the culture itself,” Janis said, and “the students can be proud of what they bring to this institution.”

An art group for students is also a possibility, she said.

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