EUGENE–Visitors will learn by doing, as they create a parfleche, the original "backpack" designed by peoples of the Great Plains, on Saturday, Oct. 10, at the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural History, one-half block east of Agate Street at 1680 E. 15th Ave.

The museum will kick off the fall season with a family celebration from noon until 3 p.m. of its newest exhibit, "Paintings and Parfleches: Native American Abstract Art." The cost is $5 per family or $2 per person, with UO students and museum members admitted free.

In addition to craft activities for children and group tours, several experts will demonstrate Native American art and technology:

• Alex Atkins, a traditional technology specialist, will demonstrate rawhide tools.

• Robert Kentta of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz will teach basketry techniques.

• Wilma Crowe, an elder in the Eugene Native American community and a Lakota from the Standing Rock Sioux nation, will share her beading skills.

• Flintknapper Jim Long and beader Clara Long, both active in this area’s Indian education schools program, will also demonstrate their work.

Visitors may design their own parfleches and experiment with the rock paintings called "pictographs." Museum guides will lead small tours through the exhibit, including interactive stations for container decoration and parfleche construction. The Museum Store will offer exhibit-related books, jewelry, cards and gifts.

The exhibit grand opening celebration is also the first in this year’s Saturday Safari series, the museum’s popular family activities program.

"Painting and Parfleches," originally organized by Bush Barn Art Center curator Saralyn Hilde, comes to Eugene from the Salem Art Association and the collection of the Museum at Warm Springs. The exhibit opens Wednesday, Sept. 30, and closes Sunday, Dec. 20.

The traveling exhibit combines 15 historic parfleches made by women of the Great Plains and Plateau tribes with contemporary paintings by four Native American artists. Parfleches are sometimes called "Indian suitcases." They were folded and brightly painted rawhide envelopes used to pack dried meats and fish, cloth, and items exchanged at weddings and other ceremonies. Most of the parfleches in this exhibit were made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

"The parfleche as a form of baggage was rugged and durable–well adapted to the nomadic lifestyles of the Plains and Plateau cultures," explains Mel Aikens, Museum of Natural History director and professor of New World archaeology.

Some of the spirit and symbols of this ancient craft are reflected in 20 new works by painters Joe Feddersen, Conrad House, G. Peter Jemison and Dan Lomahaftewa.

Feddersen, a painter and printmaker of the Colville Federated Tribes of Washington, is an organizing member of a movement to redefine American Indian art. His works address the struggle to carry native culture into a late 20th-century world.

Jemison, a Cattaraugus Seneca who lives in upstate New York, applies the traditions of the parfleche to a contemporary version, the paper bag. He explains that during his commute between Brooklyn and Manhattan, he noticed few things in common among his fellow subway riders.

"English was the least common language I heard daily, so that didn’t represent something we all used, but whether it was a paper bag, a plastic bag, or a briefcase, nearly everyone carried a container with stuff in it," he says.

Lomahaftewa, a Hopi-Choctaw, views his works as windows into the spirit world, reflecting valuable ancestral beliefs.

"What I’m trying to create are images of my own interpretation of these symbolic representations of Native Americans," he explains. Lomahaftewa’s palette is based on the Hopi colors for each cardinal direction–the flaming reds of the south, cool white of the east, golden yellow of the north, and deep blues of the west.

House, a Navajo who once attended the University of Oregon, has always been deeply influenced by the plants and animals that make up the landscape. He blends parfleche-like geometric patterns with organic motifs to create a final product that has been compared to the patchwork of a festival dress.

"Together, the work of these four artists demonstrate that Native American culture is not static," says museum director Aikens. "Designs and ideas of the past continue to be developed, and new traditions are built on the old. ‘Paintings and Parfleches’ takes the visitor through the timeline of these traditions from the rawhide parfleche to the paper bag."

The Museum of Natural History and the Museum Store welcome visitors from noon to 5 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday, except UO holidays. Because of extensive construction for the new UO law center at Agate and East 15th, parking and access routes for the museum may change from week to week. Signs or docents will guide visitors through the construction areas. Visitors park free during their visit with a day pass from the museum front desk.

For more information about the museum and this exhibit, call (541) 346-3024 or send e-mail to <mnh@oregon.uoregon.edu>. A recorded message about museum exhibits and activities is available 24 hours a day by calling GuardLine from a Touch-Tone phone at 484-2000, extension 3447, or visit the museum’s website at <http://oregon.uoregon.edu/~mnh/index.html>.

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