Due to the pandemic, VAAA has elected to move certain events onto online platforms. Others have been canceled. For more information, please visit our Facebook page.
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ABENAKI HERITAGE WEEKEND
SAVE THE DATE!
Join the Native American community for a virtual Abenaki Heritage Weekend from June 16th to June 20th. This special weekend, organized by the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association, Abenaki Arts & Education Center, and Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, gives visitors an Abenaki perspective on life in the Champlain Valley. More details coming soon on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.
We invite you to contact us with specific accommodations you need to facilitate your participation programs, workshops or any other questions you have. Send emails to heritage_weekend@abenakiart.org
#Abenaki #heritage #weekend #VAAA
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Wednesday, June 16 at 7:00 – 8:45pm – The Wabanaki Wampum Laws: A reading and interpretation with Frederick M. Wiseman, Ph. D. Registration Link https://fb.me/e/1OPrT86mt
Virtual Abenaki Heritage Weekend presents The Wabanaki Wampum Laws: A reading and interpretation with Frederick M. Wiseman, Ph. D. Immediately following Zoom screening, Dr. Wiseman will join VAAA Director Vera Sheehan for a live Q & A and discussion (concluding at 8:45pm). Recommended for High School students and adults.
Frederick M. Wiseman, Ph. D. is a member of Vermont Abenaki Artists Association (VAAA) and received their first Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013. Scholar, activist, and diplomat, Wiseman is Director of the Vermont Indigenous Heritage Center at the Burlington Intervale; Abenaki Delegate to the Wobanaki Confederacy since 1990; and Seven Nations (Canada) Wampum Keeper since 2004.
The program begins with a screening of Wiseman interpreting an important wampum belt that brought together many Native American Nations and explains diplomatic protocols that are still in use today. This is followed by an explanation of the role of wampum in diplomatic relationships and communications between members of the Great Council Fire and the Iroquois Confederacy, alliances of Native nations that extended from the Atlantic coast to lands beyond the Great Lakes.
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Thursday, June 17 at 7:00-8:30 pm – “Interview with an Abenaki Potter.”
Registration Link https://fb.me/e/FXU6QBcU
Virtual Abenaki Heritage Weekend presents a live session entitled “Interview with an Abenaki Potter.” Vicki Blanchard describes her career as a potter and her special project of creating works that reflect older styles of Abenaki pottery. Recommended for High School students and adults.
Vicki is a citizen of the Nulhegan Band of Coosuk Abenaki and a member of the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association, the Abenaki Trails Project and the Washington (NH) Area Artisans. She creates wheel-thrown and hand built pottery in her home studio in Hillsborough, New Hampshire. “My traditional journey includes finding local sources of clay, creating my pots with hand building methods and firing them in a fire pit, just as my Abenaki ancestors would have done.”
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Friday, June 18 at 7:00-8:30 pm – “Interview with an Abenaki Basketmaker.”
Registration Link https://forms.gle/Qtk1rsEysTwK2PXk6
Virtual Abenaki Heritage Weekend presents a hybrid session entitled “Interview with an Abenaki Basketmaker.” VAAA Director Vera Sheehan begins by interviewing basket maker Sherry Gould in the Abenaki language with English subtitles. The program then switches to discussion in English as Sherry describes her development as an artist and shares her creative process. Recommended for High School students and adults.
Sherry is a member of the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association, a citizen of the Nulhegan Band of Coosuk Abenaki, and was the first Native American basket maker juried into the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen. Sherry has a firm grounding in Abenaki basket traditions, and uses them to create contemporary works of art. “I can sit all alone with strips of brown ash and sweetgrass and create a work, first in my mind’s eye, and then in a dimensional reality, and I feel all those in my family who came before me,” says Sherry. “I learned this art form from two incredible traditional artists: Jeanne Brink, a fancy basket maker, and Newt Washburn, a utilitarian basket maker. Being rooted in these two veins of Abenaki tradition provides a solid base for my work.”
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Saturday June 19 & Sunday June 20 – “Dancing Blue Wolf Shares Songs with the Little Ones.”
Register to watch on-demand on Demand June 19 & 20 https://fb.me/e/7Du62xrxt .
35 minutes. Recommended for children Pre-K to Grade 2 and their families.
Virtual Abenaki Heritage Weekend presents a prerecorded session entitled “Dancing Blue Wolf Shares Songs with the Little Ones.” Dancing Blue Wolf will drum and share songs with the children, inviting them to join her in singing. She will share some information about each song and why it is sung.
Artist, singer, and educator Francine Poitras Jones is a member of Vermont Abenaki Artists Association and serves on the Advisory Council for the Abenaki Arts and Education Center. “I have drawn and painted almost as long as I can remember,” says Jones. “In addition to painting and making leather pouches, I make regalia, clothing that we wear for special occasions. Being able to express my heritage through art and music is a real gift from Creator.”
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Saturday, June 19, at 5:00 – 6:00 pm – Animal Tracks. Outdoorsman Doug Bent
Virtual Abenaki Heritage Weekend presents Animal Tracks. Outdoorsman Doug Bent of the Koasek Abenaki Tribe shares tips on how to identify the tracks of some animals and birds seen in Vermont’s wetlands and woods, backyards and gardens. Following a Zoom screening, join Doug for Q & A and discussion, ending at 6:00 pm. Recommended for fourth grade and up.
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Sunday, June 20, 5:00 – 6:30pm – The Abenaki Canoe Build – Registration Link https://forms.gle/MKWkL7o14sqVZ8FK8
Virtual Abenaki Heritage Weekend presents The Abenaki Canoe Build, chronicling how Abenaki basketmaker Bill Gould teamed up with artist and toolmaker Reid Schwartz to build a birchbark canoe from start to finish. The screening will be followed by a live Q & A and discussion with Gould and Schwartz. Recommended for High School students and adults.
A lumberman by trade, Bill Gould is a master artist of the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association, a citizen of the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki, and a juried member of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen. Reid Schwartz is a non-indigenous artist with a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design who creates handmade woodcarving tools and miniature bark canoes, and has taught and assisted courses for Plymouth Craft and the Penland School of Craft.
Designing, building, and launching their first full-sized birch bark canoe was a new adventure for these experienced woodworkers. “We learned so much,” says Gould, “and we have already started work on our next canoe!”
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These program will be recorded by VAAA/AAEC and published on the Abenaki Arts & Education YouTube channel.
Funded in part by Vermont Humanities Council, New England Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.