Master weaver Lily Hope uses national fellowship to plan largest gathering of Chilkat and Ravenstail robes in history
- Jasz Garrett
- Mar 5
- 5 min read
‘This has never happened where we have the ancestral memory of Chilkat work and the woken-up memory of Ravenstail in the same space.’
By Jasz Garrett
Juneau Independent
Tlingit master weaver Lily Hope will use a $50,000 national fellowship she was awarded this year to help organize the first Northwest Coast Textile Symposium in Juneau.
“The perpetuation of Northwest Coast textiles is my life now and into the future,” Hope said. “My dream life is continuing to vision and fundraise and connect the humans and artists and changemakers to continue to lift Chilkat and Ravenstail weaving.”
The United States Artists awardees for 2026 is nomination based, and Hope said she was first nominated six years ago. She remained in the pool by reapplying every year. The fellowship money is unrestricted and can be used to support the artist however she wishes.
Hope said she is using it to make history.
Eighty to 100 robes are expected altogether at the “Gathering of the Robes.” The textile symposium is scheduled for April 14-17, 2027, at Centennial Hall. A website launched in February and is accepting interest forms and donations.
“The Gathering of the Robes will bring together the largest dancing collection of both curvilinear Chilkat weaving and geometric Ravenstail weaving in the history of the world,” Hope said. “Many, many students of my own and of my mother, students of my students. Multiple generations deep of the people that I have taught are now teaching also, so we’ve got that depth of mentorship.”
Hope held a small gathering of 22 Chilkat robes in the past, and a separate event for nearly 40 Ravenstail robes in 2024. Both events were celebrations of the revival of the traditional craft. But Hope said both styles of textiles haven’t danced together as they will at the 2027 symposium.
“I know what it’s like to have Chilkats dancing in one place, and we experienced the joy of having Ravenstail together,” she said. “But this has never happened where we have the ancestral memory of Chilkat work and the woken-up memory of Ravenstail in the same space. The spirit being, or the ancestral resonance that is present when these works are dancing, is deeply felt by any person present.”
Hope said the emotional resonance living in the robes is difficult to put into words.
She said the most exciting thing about next year’s symposium is three days of dedicated time to gather and share knowledge in a large space. Tables will be set up for vendors and weavers can throw down robes that are works in progress.
“Tricks of the trade” will also be discussed, and weavers will have the opportunity for mentorship. Hope herself has taught hundreds of traditional weavers.
She said during the symposium, historic Ravenstail robes rewoven by 11 students and weaver colleagues will dance once again in a ceremony, titled the Ravenstail Symbolic Repatriation project.
Other projects are closer to completion and at Hope’s fingertips.
She and Sydney Akagi, her weaving colleague, worked on a Chilkat dancing blanket for the de Young Museum in San Francisco for nearly two years. It was dropped off at the museum on Thursday.
The blanket is a close replica of a work in the American Museum of Natural History. Akagi is a former student of Hope’s and was recently chosen by Sealaska Heritage Institute to lead the weaving of a historic Chilkat robe made entirely of mountain goat wool for the first time in more than 150 years.
The second “Weaving Our Pride” robe, a rainbow-colored Ravenstail, is also “inches away from completion.” Hope said it will be ready to dance at this year’s Celebration in June, SHI’s biennial cultural event.
The first, a Chilkat Pride robe, danced for the first time during Celebration in 2024. The project for both robes began in 2023. Wooden cases are also being built for both Pride robes to be stored at Zach Gordon Youth Center, the same place where they are being woven in the community. For the Ravenstail, five mentor weavers, and over 20 Alaska Native and non-Native youth have woven at the youth center for over two years.
After completion, the robes can be worn by youth during the biennial Celebration, graduations, new-name parties, coming-out parties, and other events.
“Witnessing the student who had put in the most hours on this work get to help us cut it off the loom and then drape it on their shoulders — it was one of the highlights of 2024,” Hope said. “Being able to witness this person experience the completion, but also the literal pride of participating in making something bigger than themselves, and the affirmation of identity and community, love and belonging.”
Hope said the same sense of belonging applies to a “Giving Strength” robe being woven for the AWARE shelter for domestic and sexual violence survivors. It was started in 2018.
This robe is also nearing completion, with just its bottom borders needing to be finished. Heidi Vantrease inspired the “Giving Strength” robe after posting a small teal and purple weaving on the Ravenstail and Chilkat Facebook group, captioning it “I am weaving this for someone who has been deeply affected by sexual and domestic violence, and I am being intentional about putting in my strength and prayers for healing.”
Hope said, “If it’s not us personally, it is someone close to us who has been affected.” She noted the statistics for Alaska Natives experiencing domestic and sexual violence in particular are “staggering.”
She reached out to Vantrease and asked if volunteers could weave a community robe inspired by her work for the AWARE shelter. More than 60 volunteers are creating 5-by-5-inch weavings to stitch together in a larger teal and purple robe, the colors representing sexual and domestic violence awareness.
Hope said the “Giving Strength” robe’s collaborative style echoes a community robe her late mother, Clarissa Rizal, envisioned and executed in 2016 called “Weaving Across the Waters.” It is on display at the Longhouse Weaver Studio at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Once the “Giving Strength” robe is finished, it will remain at the AWARE shelter.
“When else do you get to experience the strength of 60 artists on your shoulders? Imagine coming in from whatever you’ve just experienced over however long the abuse was happening, and you come into the AWARE shelter, and the first thing they do is set your bags down — ‘put this robe on,’” she said. “That’s why we do the work. Set down the grief and fear and rage and feel the strength of 60 people who say, ‘You can do really hard things.’”
Hope said the $50,000 fellowship she received is also “affording me this beautiful space of looking at my last 15 years of work and being able to contemplate what is next.” Most importantly, she said, it is allowing her to exhale while pondering future steps.
She closed her public studio last fall to recenter her artistic intentions after a conversation with weaver Shdendootaan “Shgen” George. It still serves as a working studio. Hope said she is thinking about creating a Chilkat blanket for her clan, the T’akdeintaan.
“What is the most sensible thing that helps to not just elevate Northwest Coast textiles, but continue my particular body of work?” she asked. “What happens if I get to make work for my own homeland? What if it isn’t about the monetization of ceremonial artwork? What do I make when I get to think about keeping something in my clan or family?”
• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.
