Minneapolis Institute of Art

Box with star motif on cover

Anishinaabe artist

Date

c. 1970

Medium

Sweetgrass, birch bark, porcupine quills

Culture

Anishinaabe (Ojibwe)

Department

Arts of the Americas

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

The Anishinaabe woman artist who created this intricately adorned and finely woven basket utilized locally harvested porcupine quills, birchbark, and sweetgrass. Artists often incorporated abstraction into their work, layering quills in complex patterns and forms that reveal both technical mastery and artistic ingenuity. For more than two hundred years, Anishinaabe women sold many of their birchbark containers and baskets to non-Native people to sustain their families during a time of major cultural disruption, including forced assimilation and removal onto governmental and religious controlled reservations. Quillboxes exemplify the power of Anishinaabe women to create a new and unique artform that expresses cultural and individual resiliency and creativity. Anishinaabe (Ojibwe), Canada, Americas

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