SHI virtual lecture to spotlight career path of master weaver
Haida artist to share professional journey in Northwest Coast art
April 21, 2025
Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor a presentation tomorrow as part of its spring lecture series featuring prominent voices in Indigenous knowledge, art, culture and language.
Evelyn Vanderhoop, a Northwest Coast textile weaver from the Haida Nation, will present her talk, “Professional NWC Art Practices.”
Vanderhoop will share her motivations, inspirations and goals to provide insight into her decision to pursue a career in Northwest Coast art. She will speak about her journey as a professional artist and highlight the key steps she took to build a viable practice, including her education, training and the planning and support systems that helped shape her path.
Vanderhoop comes from a family of weavers. The flying fingers of her mother, Delores Churchill, and grandmother, Selina Peratrovich, inspired her to begin weaving ceremonial regalia. Today she specializes in creating the traditional chiefs’ robes of the naaxiin (Chilkat) and Ravenstail styles, garments that historically reflected Northwest Coast peoples’ alignment with the natural and supernatural worlds.
“It is an honor to produce objects and garments that illustrate the continuing story of power and culture that evolved from the past and moves us into the forces that surround us today,” Vanderhoop said.
The lecture is scheduled for 10:15–11:15 a.m., Tuesday, April 22, on SHI’s YouTube channel. The lecture will be recorded and available to view after the livestream.
Sealaska Heritage Institute is a tribal organization founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. SHI also conducts scientific and public policy research that promotes Alaska Native arts, cultures, history and education statewide. The institute is governed by a Board of Trustees and guided by a Council of Traditional Scholars, a Native Artist Committee and a Southeast Regional Language Committee.
CONTACT: Kathy Dye, SHI Communications and Publications Deputy Director, 907.321.4636, kathy.dye@sealaska.com.