Our inaugural grant has been awarded!

Ruth Hallows (Tsimshian) is our grant awardee for the spring of 2026. She received funds, which will assist her attendance at the Heard Museum Guild’s 68th Annual Indian Fair & Market. Ruth employs the Tlingit and Haida protocols she inherited from her mentor weavers and seeks to recover Tsimshian ways of being. She often travels to Tsimshian communities in Washington, Alaska, and British Columbia to converse with first-language-speaking elders in Sm’algyax about these ceremonial textiles and shares the skills and training she has gathered through workshops, presentations, and lectures, as well as in traditional apprenticeships.

    

View more on Ruth Hallows website: RuthTheWholeRuth.com

Ruth maintains a daily practice of Chilkat and Ravenstail weaving in her home on O’odam and Piipaash traditional lands near Phoenix, Arizona. When the world shifted in response to the pandemic, Ruth’s personal life shifted in alignment. Together with the Northwest Coastal community, Ruth overcame financial, temporal, and geographical barriers to weave Ravenstail during lockdown with Kay Field Parker. She began mentorship with Wooshkindeinda at Lily Hope in 2021, becoming the first United States Tsimshian artist to hold the skills and training to weave full-size Chilkat dancing blankets since 1887. She has also trained in Formline Design with Robert Mills, David R. Boxely, and Steve Brown, in basketry design with Hans Chester, in cedar weaving with Vicki Soboleff, and in spruce root harvesting with Aanutein, Deborah Head.

She is an award-winning textile artist, Ksm Lx’sg̱a̱n, Ruth Hallows, who weaves in the Chilkat and Ravenstail traditions of the Northwest Coastal People. An urban Tsimshian, she developed a deep appreciation for the patterns on cedar basketry that traveled with her family through more than thirty moves. Ruth dreamt of traveling to an Alaska community and learning to weave.

” I weave for the wellness Chilkat and Ravenstail textiles afford me.” – Ruth Hallows.

Ravenstail and Chilkat Weaving

Created by Ruth Hallows

The Tsimshian people had been removed from their ceremonial textile art since 1887 when, in February 2023, the first Chilkat blanket woven by Tsimshian hands in the United States was danced to life in Juneau, Alaska. Ruth Hallows is keeping the cultural traditions alive.

WE ARE ACCEPTING GRANT APPLICATIONS

Native American Artists can apply for a $500 grant to assist with fees associated with attending the Santa Fe Indian Market in August.