Clarissa Rizal

Clarissa Rizal (June 4, 1956 – December 7, 2016) was a Tlingit artist, visionary, and organizer of Filipino descent. She was best known as a Chilkat and Ravenstail weaver, but she also worked in painting, printmaking, carving, and sculpting. In addition to being a visual artist, she was also a musician and wordsmith.

Personal life

Clarissa Seya Lampe was born on June 4, 1956, in Juneau, Alaska. Through her mother, she is of the T'ak Dein Taan (black-legged kittywake) clan of Hoonah/Glacier Bay. She also produced works for a time using the married name of Clarissa Hudson. Rizal raised a son and two daughters; both daughters are weavers. The daughters, Lily Hope and Ursala Hudson, weave and teach in Alaska and other states. Rizal died on December 7, 2016, in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

Major Works

''Copper Woman'' (2002, wool and cedar), a five piece woven ensemble, demonstrates Lampe's skill in Chilkat and Raven's Tail weaving. Her work demonstrates a spirituality and poetic sensibility; she has compared Chilkat weaving as a meditative, spiritual practice akin to Tai Chi, leading to "new horizons, new ways of thinking, and new ways of being." But she also inserted political and historical statements into her woven works. For example, the images in her
Resilience
' weaving document Western colonialism by depicting ships, museums and churches. Juxtaposed next to these images of Western influence are Native logos reflecting cultural integration, resistance, and strength, such as the Eagle and Raven moieties. ''Resilience'' embodies the universal pride of a people who have worked to maintain and reinforce the self-worth, culture and heart that colonialism tried to rob.

Her appliquéd blanket, ''Spirit of the Music'', depicts a kneeling guitarist encircled by seven squatting figures that are linked to one another. This is a reference to Rizal's work as a singer in the Tlingit funk band
Khu.éex'

Rizal also produced large scale paintings, illustrated books, and the painted designs on one of the fiberglass horses in
The Trail of Painted Ponies
'' Santa Fe, New Mexico's 2001 public art project.

Her
Weavers Across the Waters
' robe was first worn by canoe carver Wayne Price during the dedication of the Huna Tribal House at Glacier Bay and demonstrates her vision and her ability to inspire and organize other weavers. The work was completed by inviting Northwest Coast Chilkat and Raven's Tail weavers to submit 5x5 inch squares, assembled from kits that Rizal created, to be incorporated into the work. The result is a stunning, unique, balanced, "jazzy" work that incorporates a wide array of styles that all connect back to the Tlingit tradition.

Apprenticeship and writing

When in her twenties, Rizal apprenticed under Jennie Thlunaut to learn Chilkat weaving. Thlunaut was in her 90s and met Rizal at a workshop during which Thlunaut grabbed Rizal and said "You are it! Do you hear? You are it!" meaning that Rizal was the one that Thlunaut saw as the true successor to her tradition. In 2005, Rizal published a book titled ''Jennie Weaves an Apprentice: A Chilkat Weaver's Handbook''. It won a 2007–08 Honoring Alaska's Indigenous Literature Award from the Alaska Native Knowledge Network at University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Rizal contributed illustrations to the children's book ''Mary's Wild Winter Feast'' (2014).

Rizal also studied under Harry K. Bremner Sr. for song and dance and Selina Peratrovich for basketing.

Awards and honors

Rizal also received awards for her artwork. She won a 2013 Artist Fellowship from the Rasmuson Foundation. In 2015, Rizal received a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation National Artist Fellowship. She was a 2011 and 2016 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow. Rizal was a recipient of a 2016 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. Her mentor Jennie Thlunaut received the same award in 1986.

Other awards include several Native American Art Markets’ Best of Show, including: the ''1992 & 1994 Lawrence Indian Art Show'' in Lawrence, Kansas'', the 1994 Santa Fe Indian Market'' in New Mexico, the ''2002 Heard Museum Indian Market'' in Phoenix, Arizona, and the ''2004 and 2006 Sealaska Juried Art Show'' in Juneau, Alaska.  

One of the last robes on which Rizal worked was a collaborative effort, ''Weavers Across the Water.'' At least fifty weavers either submitted squares or helped Rizal in other ways. The squares were woven together into a single robe. It was first worn by master carver Wayne Price at the dedication of a new Huna tribal house in Glacier Bay. Rizal then took the robe to Washington, DC, for the NEA award event.

References

Further reading

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External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rizal, Clarissa
1956 births
2016 deaths
20th-century Alaska Native people
21st-century Alaska Native people
20th-century American artists
21st-century American artists
20th-century Native American artists
21st-century Native American artists
Alaska Native women
Weavers from Alaska
Artists from Alaska
Native American textile artists
Tlingit women artists
Tlingit artists
20th-century American women textile artists
20th-century American textile artists
National Heritage Fellowship winners
20th-century Native American women
21st-century Native American women
Textile artists from Alaska
21st-century American women textile artists
21st-century American textile artists