I am committed to collaborating with tribes. I will express my interest concerning these topics with tribal communities whose traditional and aboriginal homelands are along the Lower Columbia River. In these meetings and collaborations, I will formulate research questions with descendants of these art practitioners and communities that are important to me and to their goals as tribal entities. It is important to me that consent is given on research questions, practical goals are set, and long-term objectives are established in tandem with descendant communities in the outset of this research. Many of the research questions and goals for future collaboration will come from these meetings.
This pilot research examines the development of the Lower Columbia River art style via stone sculpture manufacture at Chinookan village sites in Oregon that were occupied between roughly 1000 BC – AD 1875. I am using a diachronic model to identify long term strategies, decisions, and social processes which may have been punctuated by material changes in style, motif, pigment recipes, and raw material procurement. I will analyze carved sculptures, painted stone artifacts, and ochre pigment stones to understand how Chinookan social contexts can alter artistic practices and land use practices. For my pilot research I ask: How do Chinookan peoples maintain, negotiate, or recontextualize their art production practices from generation to generation?