Pinch purse, with hummingbird, strawberry, and strawberry flower design

Date2003

Artist Samuel Thomas (Cayuga, born 1964)

CultureCayuga

MediumBeads and velvet

DimensionsOverall: 4 x 6 x 4 1/2 in. (10.2 x 15.2 x 11.4 cm)

Credit LineGift from the Edward J. Guarino Collection in honor of Kyle Aron Burns

On View

Not on view

Period21st c

Classification(s)

Vassar Exhibitions

My Grandmother's Whispers: Indigenous Prints and Beadwork

Label TextLorna Hill was a prolific Cayuga artist known for her contemporary interpretations of traditional Haudenosaunee beadwork. The Cayuga are one of six nations comprising the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, originating from what is now New York State. Hill’s miniature pinch purse exhibits the signature Haudenosaunee style of raised beadwork, in which seed beads are sewn and layered over a paper pattern. This miniature purse serves both as a utilitarian item and a decorative one. Historically, beadworking skills were passed down along matrilineal lines. One woman might pass a specific technique onto her daughter or granddaughter, ensuring the longevity of an artistic tradition even after her passing. Carrying on this tradition, Hill trained her son, Samuel Thomas, a celebrated beader who has worked to recover several “lost” Haudenosaunee techniques. Together, the mother and son developed the distinctive “Thomas-Hill” style, widely taught and esteemed among contemporary Indigenous beadworkers. Samuel Thomas’s pinch purse exhibits his mother’s teachings, enlarged in scale and adorned with a beaded strawberry. Cayuga mythology reveres the strawberry, which is believed to be one of the sacred gifts brought to the turtle’s back—the Earthly realm—by its first inhabitant, Sky Woman. The strawberry is thought to possess healing properties and symbolizes spring’s defeat of the long winter. Incorporating traditional Haudenosaunee techniques and motifs, Hill and Thomas’s work exemplifies the power of the matrilineal line to preserve artistic knowledge of the ancestors.

Terms

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email loebcollections@vassar.edu