Cherish Nebeshanze Parrish (born 1989) is a

black ash Black ash is a common name for several plants and may refer to: * ''Acer negundo'', native to North America * ''Fraxinus nigra ''Fraxinus nigra'', or the black ash, is a species of ash native to much of eastern Canada and the northeastern United ...

basket maker and birchbark biter. She is a member of the

Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan The Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan is a federally recognized tribe of Potawatomi people in Michigan named for a 19th-century Ojibwe chief. They were formerly known as the Gun Lake Band of Grand River Ottawa Indian ...

and of

Odawa The Odawa (also Ottawa or Odaawaa ) are an Indigenous North American people who primarily inhabit land in the Eastern Woodlands region, now in jurisdictions of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. Their territory long prec ...

descent. Parrish is a sixth generation black ash basket weaver, having learned the craft from her mother, artist

Kelly Church Kelly Jean Church ( Match-e-benash-she-wish Potawatomi/Odawa/Ojibwe) is a black ash basket maker, Woodlands style painter, birchbark biter, and educator. She lives in Michigan. Background Kelly Jean Church, a fifth-generation basket maker, wa ...

. Parrish was one of the recipients of the Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in 2006. She also participated in the 2006 Smithsonian Folklife Festival as a "Next Generation Weaver". Parrish won best of show in the 2012

Eiteljorg Museum The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art is an art museum in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. The Eiteljorg houses an extensive collection of visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas as well as Western Amer ...

Indian Market, representing the first time a basket had taken the top honor in that show. Using the pliable bark of black ash trees she harvests from the swamps of the Michigan wetlands, Parrish weaves tightly woven baskets. While she continues the tradition of free form weaving, her work was transformed with the introductions of weaving around a mold. She also creates birchbark bitings in the tradition of the

Anishinaabe The Anishinaabe (alternatively spelled Anishinabe, Anicinape, Nishnaabe, Neshnabé, Anishinaabeg, Anishinabek, Aanishnaabe) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples in the Great Lakes region of C ...

of Michigan. Parrish honors women by creating baskets that mimic the shape of women's bodies. Her work ''The Next Generation—The Carriers of Culture'', featured in the 2019 exhibition ''Hearts of our People'', is a black ash basket that replicates the curves of a pregnant woman; the work was described by artist

Jonathon Keats Jonathon Keats (born October 2, 1971) is an American conceptual artist and experimental philosopher known for creating large-scale thought experiments. Keats was born in New York City and studied philosophy at Amherst College. He now lives in S ...

as embodying "the unity of utility and beauty by relating basket and belly, while simultaneously suggesting that the future of a people is borne through heritage as much as biology."

Exhibitions

* ''An Interwoven Legacy: The Black Ash Basketry of Kelly Church and Cherish Parrish'' (2021–22),

Grand Rapids Art Museum The Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) is an art museum located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States, with collections ranging from Renaissance to Modern Art and special collections on 19th and 20th-century European and American art. Its holdin ...

, Grand Rapids, MI * ''Hearts of our People: Native Women Artists,'' (2019),

Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the List of largest art museums, largest ar ...

, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.

External links

The Art of Kelly Church and Cherish Parrish

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parrish, Cherish 1989 births Living people Weavers from Michigan Native American women artists Native American basket weavers Odawa people Potawatomi artists American women basket weavers American basket weavers 21st-century American artists 21st-century American women artists Native American people from Michigan 21st-century Native American women 21st-century Native American artists Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band Pottawatomi people