Lisa Telford facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lisa Telford
Born	Ketchikan, Alaska
Style	Northwest Coast style weaving techniques

Lisa Telford is a talented Git'ans Git'anee Haida artist born in Ketchikan, Alaska. She is famous for her unique weaving, creating modern clothes, shoes, and other items. She uses special weaving methods from the Northwest Coast region. Her art often shares ideas about Native identity, how people see Native cultures, and fashion.

You can see Lisa Telford's amazing baskets in many museums. Some of these include the Oregon Historical Society, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Her work is also at the Heard Museum, the Portland Art Museum, and the Burke Museum.

Learning to Weave

Lisa Telford comes from a family of skilled weavers. Her grandmother, mother, aunt, and cousins all knew how to weave. Even though she grew up in Indiana, she stayed connected to her Haida culture. She often visited Alaska for traditional gatherings and took part in special dances.

Before becoming a full-time artist, Lisa worked as a carpenter for 16 years. Later, she helped people find jobs at a nonprofit group. When she was 35, she started learning traditional Haida basket weaving from her aunt, Delores Churchill. She also learned to weave cedar garments from her cousin, Holly Churchill.

How Lisa Creates Her Art

For many years, Lisa Telford focused on making traditional items. But in 2004, she started to create more modern pieces. She began weaving contemporary cedar clothing, shoes, cowboy boots, and even neckties.

Lisa explains how she gets her materials:

I gather and prepare my own materials, like red and yellow cedar bark and spruce root. Finding cedar bark means traveling far from home. It also takes many hours to get the materials ready. The bark is usually stored for a year before I can start weaving.

After the materials are ready, making a single basket can take Lisa anywhere from five to 200 hours. When she was a young weaver, she once counted every stitch on one of her grandmother's old baskets. At first, she wanted her baskets to be perfect. But then she realized that letting go of that idea brought her true joy. Lisa says that weaving helps her relax and feel calm. She even calls basketry her "thread to sanity."

Working with Other Artists

Lisa Telford has also worked with other artists on special projects. In 2011, she teamed up with glass artist Preston Singletary. They created an exhibition that showed women's shapes made from glass.

Also in 2011, Lisa received a grant to work with another artist named Kelly Church. Lisa taught Kelly how to find the right cedar trees for harvesting bark. She also showed her how to split and prepare the bark for storage.

Exhibitions and Recognition

Lisa Telford's art has been shown in important exhibitions. One major show was "Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists." This exhibition traveled to different museums from June 2019 to September 2020. It was organized by the Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Lisa has also received many honors and awards for her work:

• In 1998, she was a demonstrator at the Suquamish Museum and the Seattle Art Museum.
• She taught weaving classes at the Sealaska Heritage Foundation and the Kootznoowoo Cultural Foundation in 1998.
• In 1999, she was an artist in residence at the Eiteljorg Museum and the Smithsonian Institution.
• In 2006, she was a visiting researcher at the Burke Museum's Bill Holm Center.
• She received an Artistic Innovation grant from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation in 2011.
• Her work was chosen for the catalog cover of "Time Warp: Contemporary Textiles of the Northwest Coast" in 2011.
• In 2012, she won first place at the 53rd annual Indian Fair & Market at the Heard Museum.