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==Background==
==Background==
[[File:When will the Red Leader Tremblay 2018.jpg|thumb|right|''When will the Red Leader Overshadow Images of the 19th Century Noble Savage in Hollywood Films that Some Think are Sympathetic to American Indians'' (2018) at the [[Renwick Gallery]] in 2022.]]
[[File:When will the Red Leader Tremblay 2018.jpg|thumb|right|''When will the Red Leader Overshadow Images of the 19th Century Noble Savage in Hollywood Films that Some Think are Sympathetic to American Indians'' (2018) at the [[Renwick Gallery]] in 2022.]]
Tremblay was born on December 15, 1945 in [[Buffalo, New York]].<ref name=vision/> She claimed to have unproven[[Mi'kmaq people|Mi'kmaq]] and [[Onondaga people|Onondaga]] ancestry.<ref>{{cite web |title=Gail Tremblay |url=https://artisttrust.org/artists/gail-tremblay/ |website=Artist Trust |access-date=25 April 2023}}</ref>
Tremblay was born on December 15, 1945 in [[Buffalo, New York]].<ref name=vision/> She claimed to have unproven [[Mi'kmaq people|Mi'kmaq]] and [[Onondaga people|Onondaga]] ancestry.<ref>{{cite web |title=Gail Tremblay |url=https://artisttrust.org/artists/gail-tremblay/ |website=Artist Trust |access-date=25 April 2023}}</ref>


She received her BA in drama from the [[University of New Hampshire]] and an MFA in English (Creative Writing) from the [[University of Oregon]], Eugene in 1969.<ref name=vision/>
She received her BA in drama from the [[University of New Hampshire]] and an MFA in English (Creative Writing) from the [[University of Oregon]], Eugene in 1969.<ref name=vision/>

Revision as of 01:47, 6 May 2023

Gail Tremblay
Born(1945-12-15)December 15, 1945[1]
Buffalo, New York, United States
DiedMay 3 2023
Olympia, Wa
NationalityAmerican
EducationBA University of New Hampshire, MFA University of Oregon
Known forInstallation art, basket weaving, poetry

Gail Tremblay (born 1945) was an American writer and artist who lives in Washington State. She is well known for weaving baskets from film strips that depict stereotypical subject matter of Native Americans, such as western movies and anthropological documentaries. She received a Washington State Governor's Arts and Heritage Award in 2001.[2]

Background

File:When will the Red Leader Tremblay 2018.jpg
When will the Red Leader Overshadow Images of the 19th Century Noble Savage in Hollywood Films that Some Think are Sympathetic to American Indians (2018) at the Renwick Gallery in 2022.

Tremblay was born on December 15, 1945 in Buffalo, New York.[1] She claimed to have unproven Mi'kmaq and Onondaga ancestry.[3]

She received her BA in drama from the University of New Hampshire and an MFA in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Oregon, Eugene in 1969.[1]

Writing and education career

Tremblay was a faculty member at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington and taught courses in English, art history, and Native American studies. She began her faculty appointment at Evergreen in 1980[4] and retired in 2016.[5] In writing she is largely known for poetry.[6] Tremblay also writes essays about other artists for exhibition catalogues and books. She wrote the catalogue essay, "Speaking in a Language of Vital Signs," for the 2008 exhibition catalogue, Joe Feddersen: Vital Signs at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University.

Visual art

Tremblay combines historical Native American techniques and materials with contemporary artistic expression, such as her woven pieces and baskets,[7] created from experimental materials such as exposed film. Her poetry and art are inspired by the cultures of Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands.[4] In a 2021 published interview with art historian Cathy Denning, Tremblay said that the motivation for her work: "I am a Native person using my own tribal lens to comment on what I see happening at this moment in the world where I live."[8]

Tremblay says that aunts taught her basketry techniques and forms which she reinterpreted through the use of film stock and film leader as materials. Tremblay's art draws from Native American history, Indigenous cosmologies, literature, Western movies, and other pop culture references. For example, she created a basket using red and white film leader entitled, And Then There's the Business of Fancydancing, inspired by Sherman Alexie's film, The Business of Fancydancing (2002), where the main character, a Spokane man, has a love relationship with a white man. As she said, "I chose to use Porcupine Stitch because there are so many difficult and prickly relationships between characters in this film.”[9] Tremblay's woven basketry with film also includes When will the Red Leader Overshadow Images of the 19th Century Noble Savage in Hollywood Films that Some Think are Sympathetic to American Indians (2018), a basket woven using 35mm film from the movie Windwalker (1981), which was acquired by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2021.[10]

Artweek reviewer Marcia Morse writes, “Gail Tremblay addresses the troubled history of her own indigenous heritage in And Then There is The Hollywood Indian Princess (2002). Using the Fancy Stitches of Iroquois basketry, Tremblay—instead of the brown ash splint and sweet grass used by Northeastern tribes—has used recycled 16 mm leader and film on sexually transmitted diseases, elegantly subverting multiple stereotypes.”[11]

Exhibitions

Tremblay has staged many solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group shows. Her notable solo shows include Gail Tremblay: Fiber, Metal, Wood (1988), Museum of the Plains Indian, Browning, Montana;[12] The Empty Fish Trap Installation (2004), Evergreen State College Gallery, Olympia, Washington;[12] Gail Tremblay: Twenty Years of Making (2002), Daybreak Star Cultural Center, Seattle;[12] Reframing Images, Conceptualizing Indigenous Art (2013), Froelick Gallery, Portland, Oregon;[12] and Art of Gail Tremblay (2017), Eastern Washington University Downtown Gallery, Cheney, Washington.[13]

Notable works in public collections

Publications

  • Night Gives Women the Word (Omaha Printing Company, 1979)
  • Close to Home (University of Nebraska, 1981)
  • Indian Singing in 20th Century America (CALYX Books, 1990)
  • Farther From and Too Close to Home (CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2013)

References

  1. ^ a b c Vigil, Jennifer C. "Gail Tremblay." Museum of Contemporary Native Arts: Vision Project. (retrieved 10 May 2011)
  2. ^ "Artist Collection". ArtsWA. Retrieved 2021-05-14.
  3. ^ "Gail Tremblay". Artist Trust. Retrieved 25 April 2023.
  4. ^ a b Bataille, Gretchen M.; Lisa, Laurie, eds. (2003). Native American Women: A Biographical Dictionary. Routledge. p. 317. ISBN 978-1-135-95587-8. Retrieved 1 May 2020.
  5. ^ Froelick, Charles. "Gail Tremblay". Froelick Gallery. Retrieved March 30, 2023.
  6. ^ "Gail Tremblay on Native American Authors | ipl: Information You Can Trust". Retrieved 2021-05-14.
  7. ^ "Froelick Gallery". Archived from the original on 2017-07-26. Retrieved 2008-06-22.
  8. ^ Denning, Cathy (December 2021). "A CONVERSATION WITH GAIL TREMBLAY" (PDF).
  9. ^ "The Arkansas Arts Center". InCollect. Retrieved 2021-04-23.
  10. ^ a b "When will the Red Leader Overshadow Images of the 19th Century Noble Savage in Hollywood Films that Some Think are Sympathetic to American Indians". SAAM. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Archived from the original on 14 May 2022. Retrieved 14 May 2022.
  11. ^ Morse, Marcia (2008). "'Tattered Cultures' at the Academy Art Center". Artweek. 39 (9): 29.
  12. ^ a b c d "Gail Tremblay CV" (PDF). Froelick Gallery. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 November 2022. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  13. ^ Pohl, Grace (9 November 2017). "Eastern Washington Downtown Gallery hosts EWU Student Bazaar". Cheney Free Press. Archived from the original on 15 November 2022. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  14. ^ "Basket". PAM. Portland Art Museum. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  15. ^ "Strawberry and Chocolate". NMAI. Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on 15 November 2022. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  16. ^ "In the World of White Line Fever..." WillametteArt. Willamette University. Archived from the original on 15 November 2022. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  17. ^ "And Then There is the Hollywood Indian Princess". WillametteArt. Willamette University. Archived from the original on 15 November 2022. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  18. ^ "Contemporary Native American Art In The Gallagher Law Library". UW Law. University of Washington. Archived from the original on 15 November 2022. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  19. ^ "A Note to Lewis and Clark's Ghosts". WillametteArt. Willamette University. Archived from the original on 15 November 2022. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  20. ^ "A Note to Lewis and Clark's Ghosts". NMAI. Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on 15 November 202. Retrieved 15 November 2022. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 15 November 2022 suggested (help)
  21. ^ "Trimet Public Art Database". PublicArt.Trimet. TriMet. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  22. ^ "Hunting for the Red Queen on the Big Night out". Arts.WA. Archived from the original on 15 November 2022. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  23. ^ "Five Women Artists in the Whatcom Collection". Whatcom. Whatcom Museum. 22 March 2019. Archived from the original on 15 November 2022. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  24. ^ "And Then There's the Business of Fancy Dancing..." ArkMFA. Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. Archived from the original on 15 November 2022. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  25. ^ "In Great Expectations, There is No Red Leader". PAM. Portland Art Museum. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  26. ^ "It Was Never About Playing Cowboys and Indians". DAM. Denver Art Museum. Archived from the original on 15 November 2022. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
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