Clarissa Rizal

Clarissa Rizal (June 4, 1956 – December 7, 2016) was a Tlingit artist, visionary, and organizer of Filipino descent.^[1] She was best known as a Chilkat and Ravenstail weaver, but she also worked in painting, printmaking, carving, and sculpting.^[2][3] In addition to being a visual artist, she was also a musician and wordsmith.^[4]

Clarissa Rizal
Rizal in 2016
Born	Clarissa Seya Lampe (1956-06-04)June 4, 1956 Juneau, Alaska, U.S.
Died	December 7, 2016(2016-12-07) (aged 60) Pagosa Springs, Colorado, U.S.
Nationality	Tlingit
Movement	Northwest Coast art
Children	Lily Hope
Awards	National Heritage Fellowship (2016), Honoring Alaska's Indigenous Literature Award (2007–08)
Website	clarissarizal.com

Personal life

Clarissa Seya Lampe was born on June 4, 1956, in Juneau, Alaska.^[3] Through her mother, she is of the T'ak Dein Taan (black-legged kittywake) clan of Hoonah/Glacier Bay.^[1][3] 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.^[2] The daughters, Lily Hope and Ursala Hudson, weave and teach in Alaska and other states.^[5] Rizal died on December 7, 2016, in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.^[3]

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.^[4]

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.^[4]

Apprenticeship and writing

When in her twenties, Rizal apprenticed under Jennie Thlunaut to learn Chilkat weaving.^[1] 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.^[4] In 2005, Rizal published a book titled Jennie Weaves an Apprentice: A Chilkat Weaver's Handbook.^[6] It won a 2007–08 Honoring Alaska's Indigenous Literature Award from the Alaska Native Knowledge Network at University of Alaska, Fairbanks.^[7]

Rizal contributed illustrations to the children's book Mary's Wild Winter Feast (2014).^[8]

Rizal also studied under Harry K. Bremner Sr. for song and dance and Selina Peratrovich for basketing.^[9]

Awards and honors

Rizal also received awards for her artwork. She won a 2013 Artist Fellowship from the Rasmuson Foundation.^[10] In 2015, Rizal received a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation National Artist Fellowship.^[11] She was a 2011 and 2016 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow.^[12] 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.^[13]

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.^[2][13] 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.^[2]