California Pomo Native Art Show: Luwana Quitiquit and Alan Harrison

Pomo artists, Luwana Quitiquit and her son, Alan Harrison will once again bring their contemporary and traditional arts, jewelry and crafts to Gathering Tribes.

Forty-two years ago and in the wake of protesting native land rights on Alcatraz Island, Luwana Quitiquit found herself mesmerized by the intricacies of basket weaving. Luwana was both a full-time mother and a student at UC Berkeley when she would travel eighty miles to ply her craft. Soon she was taking instruction from the world-renowned Pomo basket maker Mabel McKay.

Alan Harrison, Luwana's son who at the Alcatraz occupation with her as a child, creates a variety of vessels, rattles and dreamcatchers using gourds. the gourds are cured, painted, and sometimes decorated to emulate the traditional Pomo baskets of his family and ancestors.

Luwana creates traditional jewelry using abalone, pine nuts, dentillium shells, glass beads and more. The polished texture of her necklaces is the work of many hours of smoothing the rough-hewn edges of natural shell and other organic elements. One of these elements is "Pomo money," the small round white beads used on many of her necklaces and bracelets. Peculiar to Pomo money is the way it sounds when it is on the body and hitting against itself. She also makes jewelry and dolls using acorns (which she hollows out to become small vessels) and a variety of other wonderful items using natural materials.