Extra Tough: Women of the North

Josephine Ungott, (1905-1983) 
St. Lawrence Island Yupik Doll, 1956 
Seal gut, crested auklet feathers and beaks, fur, beads
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, gift of Miss Mary E. Rowley, 1965.14.33 

Yup’ik girls illustrated stories and legends for each other, sketching images in mud or snow with story knives made from ivory, wood, antlers, or filed metal strips. Girls also used the knives for games that strengthened their spatial relations, problem solving, and memory skills. Today, butter knives are sometimes used to practice and create sewing designs. 

Dolls, commonly given to girls, provide an opportunity for children to model behavior and role-play. Josephine Ungott’s doll represents a girl in traditional clothing and is made from seal gut, auklet feathers and beaks, glass beads, fur, alder, and other natural materials. The Tlingit-attributed doll depicts a woman carrying a baby. 

Mass-produced paper dolls emerged in the 1800s. They allowed children to dress the dolls in a variety of different fashions. These paper dolls from the 1940s reveal dominant beauty standards of the time: fair-skinned, tall, thin, and made-up. The Fiona Fisherman doll reflects changing social norms and possibilities for women today. 

Doll with baby carrier, c. 1935 
Collected in Unalaska area, attributed to a Tlingit maker 
Seal hide, gut, felt, beads, thread
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, gift of Ms. Alice Daniel, 1973.65.2ab 

Yup’ik girls illustrated stories and legends for each other, sketching images in mud or snow with story knives made from ivory, wood, antlers, or filed metal strips. Girls also used the knives for games that strengthened their spatial relations, problem solving, and memory skills. Today, butter knives are sometimes used to practice and create sewing designs. 

Dolls, commonly given to girls, provide an opportunity for children to model behavior and role-play. Josephine Ungott’s doll represents a girl in traditional clothing and is made from seal gut, auklet feathers and beaks, glass beads, fur, alder, and other natural materials. The Tlingit-attributed doll depicts a woman carrying a baby. 

Mass-produced paper dolls emerged in the 1800s. They allowed children to dress the dolls in a variety of different fashions. These paper dolls from the 1940s reveal dominant beauty standards of the time: fair-skinned, tall, thin, and made-up. The Fiona Fisherman doll reflects changing social norms and possibilities for women today. 

Anna Martins, (1927-2012) 
Story knife, 1972 
Walrus ivory and ink 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 1972.82.1 

Yup’ik girls illustrated stories and legends for each other, sketching images in mud or snow with story knives made from ivory, wood, antlers, or filed metal strips. Girls also used the knives for games that strengthened their spatial relations, problem solving, and memory skills. Today, butter knives are sometimes used to practice and create sewing designs. 

Dolls, commonly given to girls, provide an opportunity for children to model behavior and role-play. Josephine Ungott’s doll represents a girl in traditional clothing and is made from seal gut, auklet feathers and beaks, glass beads, fur, alder, and other natural materials. The Tlingit-attributed doll depicts a woman carrying a baby. 

Mass-produced paper dolls emerged in the 1800s. They allowed children to dress the dolls in a variety of different fashions. These paper dolls from the 1940s reveal dominant beauty standards of the time: fair-skinned, tall, thin, and made-up. The Fiona Fisherman doll reflects changing social norms and possibilities for women today. 

Claire Fejes, (1920-1998)
Woman Washing Dishes, Beaver, Alaska, 1981
Oil on canvas
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 1981.83.1

Claire Fejes traveled throughout rural Alaska, painting scenes of daily life in Indigenous communities. Frequently, she depicted women at work, fishing, butchering, cleaning, and caring for children. By elevating scenes of work, particularly “women’s work,” Fejes communicated the intrinsic value of labor that is often overlooked.

Yup’ik or Iñupiaq paper doll, c. 1915 
Crayon, graphite, and paper 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, Floyd and Gladys Allen Collection, 1997.18.87ab 

Yup’ik girls illustrated stories and legends for each other, sketching images in mud or snow with story knives made from ivory, wood, antlers, or filed metal strips. Girls also used the knives for games that strengthened their spatial relations, problem solving, and memory skills. Today, butter knives are sometimes used to practice and create sewing designs. 

Dolls, commonly given to girls, provide an opportunity for children to model behavior and role-play. Josephine Ungott’s doll represents a girl in traditional clothing and is made from seal gut, auklet feathers and beaks, glass beads, fur, alder, and other natural materials. The Tlingit-attributed doll depicts a woman carrying a baby. 

Mass-produced paper dolls emerged in the 1800s. They allowed children to dress the dolls in a variety of different fashions. These paper dolls from the 1940s reveal dominant beauty standards of the time: fair-skinned, tall, thin, and made-up. The Fiona Fisherman doll reflects changing social norms and possibilities for women today. 

Paper dolls, c. 1940 
Paper 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, gift of Carol Carey, 1992.11.2 

Yup’ik girls illustrated stories and legends for each other, sketching images in mud or snow with story knives made from ivory, wood, antlers, or filed metal strips. Girls also used the knives for games that strengthened their spatial relations, problem solving, and memory skills. Today, butter knives are sometimes used to practice and create sewing designs. 

Dolls, commonly given to girls, provide an opportunity for children to model behavior and role-play. Josephine Ungott’s doll represents a girl in traditional clothing and is made from seal gut, auklet feathers and beaks, glass beads, fur, alder, and other natural materials. The Tlingit-attributed doll depicts a woman carrying a baby. 

Mass-produced paper dolls emerged in the 1800s. They allowed children to dress the dolls in a variety of different fashions. These paper dolls from the 1940s reveal dominant beauty standards of the time: fair-skinned, tall, thin, and made-up. The Fiona Fisherman doll reflects changing social norms and possibilities for women today. 

Linda Smogor, (b. 1954)
Deva and Her Beach Towel, 2008 
Inkjet print 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 2008.54.3 

Linda Smogor’s black-and-white portrait shows a young girl draped in a towel emblazoned with Marilyn Monroe’s face. Young women receive conscious and subconscious messages about how to look, dress, and behave from advertisements, social media, television, and movies. Monroe herself struggled with the way she was commodified, famously saying, “Hollywood is place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.”  

Kali Spitzer, (b. 1983)
Holland Andrews, 2018
C-print of scanned tintype
On loan from the artist

Canadian artist Kali Spitzer is of Kaska Dena and Jewish Transylvanian ancestry. She creates tintype portraits of primarily Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and queer friends and family, imbuing her subjects with a sense of dignity and autonomy often lacking in mainstream representations. Her goal is to create a space of safety, where people can tell their stories and “be seen, in a good way.” Holland Andrews, depicted here, is a nonbinary musician and friend of Spitzer’s.

Ricky Tagaban, (b. 1990)
Denial, 2015
Mixed media
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 2015.27.1

Ricky Tagaban is a two-spirit Chilkat weaver from Juneau. In Tlingit culture, Chilkat weaving is practiced primarily by women, but male-bodied two-spirit people were historically welcomed to the practice as well.

“To make [Chilkat weavings] is a really prestigious thing, traditionally," Tagaban says. "So, for two-spirit people to be able to make Chilkat, it shows that we weren’t stigmatized. We actually had an elevated position in our society before colonization began."

Allie High, (b. 1952)
Raven Maid (Made), 1992
Mixed media
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 1992.74.1

Unangax̂ and Tsimshian artist Allie High learned to carve from Jack Hudson of Metlakatla, Alaska. Although Northwest Coast carving tends to be associated with men, there are many accomplished female carvers practicing in Alaska and along the Northwest Coast today.

High’s mask, Raven Maid (Made) is a tongue-in-cheek reference to her Tlingit heritage and her female subject. The mask, with full lips that appear painted with lipstick, reveals High’s interest in the subtlety of feminine facial features, as well as a modern updating of traditional Northwest Coast forms.

George Ootenna, (1878-1971) 
Untitled, c. 1900 
Graphite on paper 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 2004.61.85ab

Scenarios depicted by Iñupiaq artists Ongualuk and George Ootenna show the importance of play and socialization in the development of gender roles.

Ongualuk’s drawing shows a woman in fancy dress. The caption, likely written by teacher Ellen Kittredge Lopp reads: “Nora’s sister, Ongualuk, has been here drawing some pictures this afternoon and I will send you some. Though they are not in very good shape they will show what pretty girls like to dress in.”

Ootenna’s generation survived the 1918 flu pandemic and he was one of a few surviving adults in Wales who took on responsibility for community leadership during this time. He is remembered as a source of knowledge and caring for young people who lost family members and parents.

Ongualuk
Dress of a Thrifty Woman Who is Rich, c. 1900
Graphite on paper
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, gift of Kathleen Lopp Smith, 2004.61.98

Image of Miss Alaska 1953 Muriel Hagberg, wearing a fur-trimmed bathing suit on iceberg in Kotzebue, 1953
Photograph by Frank H. Whaley
Anchorage Museum, Wien Collection, B1985.27.1453 

Muriel Hagberg’s father was a gold miner from Sweden. Her Iñupiaq mother, Laura Wright, designed and patented the Laura Wright Alaskan Parky, a popular garment for both winter and summer seasons that is still made and sold in Alaska today. Hagberg was crowned Miss Alaska in 1953 and competed in the Miss Universe pageant that same year.

Danielle Andress, (b. 1985) 
Object of Desire, 2016 
Cotton, wool, and yarn 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 2019.23.1 

Korean-American artist Danielle Andress was born in Fairbanks, Alaska. Her weaving Object of Desire draws a parallel between the art object and her experience as a woman. In the US, weaving is most often gendered female and often categorized as “craft,” existing outside the realm of fine art. Andress refutes this notion with her conceptual weavings, incorporating wordplay and pop-cultural references. 

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Margret Hugi-Lewis, (b. 1941) 
Delft, 2001 
Mixed media 
On loan from University of Alaska Museum of the North 

Delft is a city in the Netherlands, which became world-renowned in the 17^th century for its pottery that was more attainable than Chinese porcelain. Delftware, still produced today, often features blue details on a white background. 

Swiss-born (now living and working in Alaska) artist Margret Hugi-Lewis’ use of Delftware patterning on this torso, and her addition of cabinet handles, imply that women’s bodies may be perceived as objects of decoration and utility.

Suzy Lake, (b. 1947) 
Pucker, from the series Beauty at a Proper Distance, 2001 
Digital chromogenic print 
On loan from the artist 

American-Canadian artist Suzy Lake explores the cultural obsession with, and commodification of, female youth in her series Beauty at a Proper Distance. From afar, these photographs look like advertisements from a fashion magazine, but, up close they reveal imperfections and signs of aging. Lake says, “As an older woman I am the ‘other,’ yet I have an experienced life to celebrate. In making this work, I employ media strategies and signifiers to sell an image of maturity to an audience infatuated with youth.” 

Nicotye Samayualie, (b. 1983) 
School of Nail Polish, 2018 
Graphite, colored pencil, ink
On loan from Dorset Fine Arts 

School of Nail Polish depicts an abundance of nail-polish bottles and colors, arranged evenly across the picture plane, almost like words on a page. The artist’s choice of composition and title suggests that the expression of femininity is a language or system that must be learned, like a subject in school.             

Shellie Zhang, (b. 1991) 
Purity Control, 2014-2015 
Chromogenic print 
On loan from the artist 

Chinese-Canadian artist Shellie Zhang collects and photographs objects as a way of investigating what they communicate about a person, group, or the broader culture. Purity Control shows items marketed towards women. Each is intended to remove something from the body, whether hair, skin, or blemishes. The blue background evokes a hospital-like sterility.

Erica Lord, (b. 1978) 
Native-Looking, 2005 
Photograph
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 2012.8.1 

This photograph is part of the artist’s series titled The Tanning Project, which addresses issues of racial and cultural identity and contemporary feminism. In Native-Looking, Athabascan/Iñupiaq/European/Japanese artist Erica Lord emphasizes the impossibility of fitting within colonial stereotypes. She sees her work as part of “an evolution of new ways to demonstrate cultural identity beyond the polar ideas that exist within a strictly two-worlds discourse." 

Alison Bremner, (b. 1989) 
Wat’sa with a Pearl Earring, 2014 
Giclee print
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 2019.7.4 

Tlingit artist Alison Bremner’s Wat’sa with a Pearl Earring is a digital collage of Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring—a canonical work in Western art history—and a Tsimshian otter mask. In Tsimshian mythology, land otters often take the form of beautiful women, appearing to unsuspecting men to steal them away. By juxtaposing these two artworks, Bremner pushes back against the male gaze while playfully commenting on the exclusion of Northwest Coast art from the art historical canon. 

Carol Crump Bryner, (b. 1945) 
Self Portrait, 1985 
Oil on canvas 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, gift of the artist, 1991.5.1 

Anchorage-based artist Carol Crump Bryner is known for her contemplative still lives of interior spaces. In this self-portrait, the artist poses wearing an apron she was given for Mother’s Day. Against the background of a blank canvas, the frills and flowers of the apron stand out. A tension arises between this symbol of domesticity and Bryner’s confident gaze.

iiu Suisraja 
Broom, 2010 
Ink print 
On loan from the artist 

Finnish photographer iiu Susiraja creates unflinching self-portraits, often incorporating household items in her compositions. She positions her body and props in unexpected ways, suggesting endless creative possibilities in seemingly mundane circumstances. Susiraja says, “I find inspiration when having a moment of rest on the couch. I am thinking of different objects in my mind. The most important matter is what kind of feelings objects generate.” 

iiu Suisraja, (b. 1975) 
Bagfeet, 2010 
Ink print 
On loan from the artist 

Lori Blondeau, (b. 1964)
The Lonely Surfer Squaw, 1997
Ink print
On loan from the artist

Cree/Saulteaux/Métis artist Lori Blondeau poses in a fur bikini with a Styrofoam surfboard. Inspired by surfing movies of the 1960s and 70s she watched as a child, Blondeau reinvents herself as the lonely surfer squaw. Taking on the dominant aesthetics of mainstream media culture, Blondeau appropriates and transforms the pin-up girl trope. Often using humor to address challenging subject matter, she reclaims the word “squaw”—an epithet used against her as a child.

Amber Webb, (b. 1984)
Meq, 2020
Ink on wood
On loan from the artist

Meqmeans “water” in Yugtun, and for Yup’ik artist Amber Webb, water represents the source of all life. She says, “We are a part of the land welcome from and it is a part of us ... Water and land flow through each other. Whether land is being honored or exploited, women feel that, in one way or another.”

The woman’s body depicted contains many symbols and ideas; Webb draws a parallel between women and land as life-givers. The lamp on the right hand and the bird shapes on the chest represent prayers for the wellbeing of Southwest Alaskan women and their homelands. The masks on the stomach symbolize generations of place-based society.

Robin Lovelace, (b. 1970) 
Predator Cannibal Mask, 2011 
Alderwood and abalone; stainless steel and abalone
Private Collection  

Tlingit artist Robin Lovelace’s Predator Cannibal Mask is a “supernatural modern-day myth of my own making,” inspired by stories of her great-grandfather, a tribal shaman during the first waves of colonization in British Columbia.  

The work grapples with the predations of 21^st-century colonialism and capitalism. In Lovelace’s mythos, the “predator cannibal” seeks to annihilate destructive impulses of all kinds, and “takes care of people, heals them, helps them let go of the burden of trauma … helps make people whole.”  

Lovelace carved the original mask in alder wood, and later cast it in stainless steel. The stainless-steel version will outlast the wooden one by hundreds of years, representing the endurance of ancient wisdom married with modern technology. 

Merritt Johnson, (b. 1977) 
Mindset (Sweetgrass), 2019 
Digital print 
On loan from the artist 

Sitka-based Mohawk/Blackfoot/European artist Merritt Johnson’s woven headset is modeled on virtual reality (VR) goggles, which provide an immersive sensory experience that disconnects the user from reality. Johnson’s headset offers visual and olfactory experiences rooted in land, while providing a temporary disconnect from the effects of colonialism and capitalism. In this photograph, the woven headset is worn by a toddler, suggesting the ways children’s mindsets are shaped in contemporary society. The artist says, “Sweetgrass has provided good mindsets for generations, connecting land, spirit, and intention.”  

Merritt Johnson, (b. 1977) 
Mother’s love, Ista konaronkwa, 2018 
Rabbit fur, beads, Kevlar, ribbon, thread
On loan from the artist 

Mother’s love, Ista konaronkwa is an infant-sized bonnet, hand-knit from Kevlar, lined with rabbit fur, and adorned with beads and ribbon. The combination of materials reflects how a mother’s love is expressed and understood—as warm and comforting but also unflinching and strong. Kevlar known for its use in bulletproof vests; however, the bonnet is not bulletproof. Johnson uses Kevlar to convey the intention to protect, while simultaneously acknowledging that many children in the US—especially children of color—still face dangers stemming from systemic racism. The bonnet is an extension of “love, joy, and strength, made to face the world as it is”—rather than as it should be.  

Delores Churchill, (b. 1929)
Basket with lid, c. 1978
Red and yellow cedar, grass, maidenhair fern, spruce root
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 2012.26.1ab

Expert Haida weaver Delores Churchill made this basket as a teaching tool to demonstrate Northwest Coast weaving styles, incorporating Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and Makah materials, techniques, and designs. Five distinctive weaving patterns are represented using red cedar, yellow cedar, maidenhair fern, sun-bleached grass, and spruce root.

Churchill learned to weave from traditional weavers, including her mother, the respected weaver Selina Peratrovich. She also traveled to institutions around the world to study weavings held in their collections and document various styles and techniques.

For Churchill, teaching is a crucial part of her practice: “Weaving connects us to the past and teaching passes the weaving art on to the future. Each generation of weavers will contribute their interpretations and artist expressions to the continuation and growth of this vibrant art form. [Our] students, and their students, will keep this art alive long after our names are forgotten. Weaving belongs to all of us.”

Karinna Gomez, (b. 1987) 
Broke Down 4Runner, Fairbanks, AK, 2017 
Collage on paper 
On loan from the artist 

Anchorage artist Karinna Gomez’s Broke Down 4Runner, Fairbanks, AK shows a quintessential Alaskan front-yard scene: a broken car with the implements to fix it scattered in the snow. The winder landscape is rendered through an assemblage of loosely collaged elements of bare trees and pink sky.  

Rachel Mulvihill, (b. 1985) 
Dream House, 2017 
Acrylic on canvas 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, Rasmuson Found Art Acquisition Fund, 2019.22.1 

Unangax̂-European artist Rachel Mulvihill considers herself a landscape painter, depicting interiors and urbanized yards that emphasize the mundane aspects of life in the North. Her intimate, unassuming landscapes are often slyly humorous.

Mulvihill is interested in domestic life in Alaska, the process of home modification and adaptation, and the fragile boundary between interior and exterior spaces. Dream House shows an elderly man repairing drywall in a nondescript area of a home. The harsh fluorescent light, the bedsheet draped over items in the closet, the unused wooden beams—all are authentic details of overlooked and unremarkable aspects of Alaskan living. The print of the man’s shirt is the only reference to the world outside.  

Annie Pootoogook, (1969-2016) 
Watching the Simpsons on TV, 2003 
Ink, crayon, and pencil on paper 
Private Collection 

Artist Annie Pootoogook came from a family of well-known Canadian Inuit artists. The seeming simplicity of her colored-pencil drawings belies their pointed social commentary on contemporary Inuit life. She did not shy away from depicting alcoholism, domestic violence, and other social ills wrought by colonization.

Watching the Simpsons on TV shows a young child watching The Simpsons while a man helps a woman remove a baby from the hood of her parka. The picture is a reminder of the dominance of American popular culture throughout much of the world.  

Tiina Itkonen, (b. 1968)
Two polar bear trousers and three towels, 2002
Pigment print
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 2016.27.1

Finnish artist Tiina Itkonen’s photograph of trousers and towels in Savissivik, Greenland, offers a slice of domestic life both familiar and unfamiliar—the ubiquitous clothesline hung with Inuit clothing against the winter landscape.

Kathryn C. Mallory, (b. 1962)
Lena & Pete with the Laundry & the Meat, 2007
Oil on linen
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, Rasmuson Foundation Art Acquisition Fund, 2008.20.4

Fairbanks artist Kathryn Mallory created this painting based on visits she made to villages on the Seward Peninsula. The composition emphasizes the clothesline in the foreground, while the butchering activity occurs in the distance. The bright crimson blood from the meat echoes the colors of the hanging laundry.

Janet Kigusiuq, (1926-2005)
Mosquitoes in the Camp, late 20th to early 21st century
Crayon on paper
Private Collection

Canadian Inuit artist Janet Kigusiuq worked in drawing, collage, and printmaking, and is known for realistic and abstract representations of Arctic life. In this work, two dogs tethered to rock - like forms sleep outside a large pink tent. Kigusiuq has painstakingly covered its surface with the outlines of hundreds of mosquitoes — rarely represented in artworks, but an integral part of the experience of being on the land in summertime.

James Barker, (b. 1932) 
Untitled (Upallret dancers use a walrus mask made by carver Earl Atchak), 1995 
Photograph print 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, gift of the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Community Folklife Program, 1996.42.6 

These photographs highlight the intimate connection between land, animals, plants, and human culture. Women harvest and transform materials from the land into art, food, and useful objects. Practices around gathering, making, and giving thanks are physical manifestations of spiritual beliefs.

Masks are often used in celebrations and ceremonies to pay homage to the spirits of animals taken by hunters. These acts of thanksgiving are important for maintaining the balance between humans and the animals they depend on to survive.  

In Alaska Native cultures, there is a use and a need for every part of an animal, so nothing goes to waste. Seal gut is processed and cleaned in a difficult and time-consuming process.

Yup’ik and other Alaska Native families gather berries through the summer and fall, storing them for the long winter. While out picking, it is important to honor the nunam yui, the land’s non-human inhabitants, by giving an offering of food and water.  

James Barker, (b. 1932) 
Untitled (Francis Usugan of Toksook Bay holds dried seal gut), 1980 
Silver gelatin print 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 2014.31.15 

These photographs highlight the intimate connection between land, animals, plants, and human culture. Women harvest and transform materials from the land into art, food, and useful objects. Practices around gathering, making, and giving thanks are physical manifestations of spiritual beliefs.

Masks are often used in celebrations and ceremonies to pay homage to the spirits of animals taken by hunters. These acts of thanksgiving are important for maintaining the balance between humans and the animals they depend on to survive.  

In Alaska Native cultures, there is a use and a need for every part of an animal, so nothing goes to waste. Seal gut is processed and cleaned in a difficult and time-consuming process.

Yup’ik and other Alaska Native families gather berries through the summer and fall, storing them for the long winter. While out picking, it is important to honor the nunam yui, the land’s non-human inhabitants, by giving an offering of food and water.  

James Barker, (b. 1932)
Untitled (Helen, Maggie and Shirley Wasuli pick salmonberries, Kotlik), 1983 
Silver gelatin print 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 2014.31.20 

These photographs highlight the intimate connection between land, animals, plants, and human culture. Women harvest and transform materials from the land into art, food, and useful objects. Practices around gathering, making, and giving thanks are physical manifestations of spiritual beliefs.

Masks are often used in celebrations and ceremonies to pay homage to the spirits of animals taken by hunters. These acts of thanksgiving are important for maintaining the balance between humans and the animals they depend on to survive.  

In Alaska Native cultures, there is a use and a need for every part of an animal, so nothing goes to waste. Seal gut is processed and cleaned in a difficult and time-consuming process.

Yup’ik and other Alaska Native families gather berries through the summer and fall, storing them for the long winter. While out picking, it is important to honor the nunam yui, the land’s non-human inhabitants, by giving an offering of food and water.  

Elsie Burkman, (1912-2004) 
720 Front Street, 1969 
Mushroom ink on paper 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, gift of the Rasmuson Foundation, 1971.234.10ab

During the 1960s, Washington-based artist Elsie Burkman traveled throughout the west coast of North America, sketching and painting the landscape. She worked primarily in pencil and watercolor, but mushroom collecting and identification was her hobby, leading her to make a series of works with “mushroom juice” from ink cap mushrooms (Coprinopsis atramentaria).

Elsie Burkman, (1912-2004)
Totem Road – Ketchikan, 1969 
Mushroom ink on paper 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, gift of the Rasmuson Foundation, 1971.234.11 

During the 1960s, Washington-based artist Elsie Burkman traveled throughout the west coast of North America, sketching and painting the landscape. She worked primarily in pencil and watercolor, but mushroom collecting and identification was her hobby, leading her to make a series of works with “mushroom juice” from ink cap mushrooms (Coprinopsis atramentaria).

Sonya Kelliher-Combs, (b. 1969) 
Mark, 2017 
Mixed media 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 2019.3.3ae 

In this work by Athabascan and Iñupiaq artist Sonya Kelliher-Combs, the artist has created a mark running along the pelts of several animals—seal, caribou, beaver, musk ox, and polar bear. These animals are critical to the lifeways of Athabascan and Iñupiat peoples, and Kelliher-Combs often incorporates them into her work. Her emphatic gouge through the skins draws attention to the fact that humans are constantly leaving their mark on the environment, with pipelines, roads, and other modifications that negatively impact the land that humans and animals depend on for survival.  

Karen Stahlecker, (b. 1954) 
White Trees, c. 1986 
Paper and wood 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 1987.2.4.ac 

Made from handmade paper mounted on dried plant-fiber stalks, Karen Stahlecker’s White Trees reference the shape of books, transformed into trees. These delicate forms create an ethereal, three-dimensional experience of a winter landscape.  

Leslie Shows, (b. 1977) 
Face K, 2011 
Ink, acrylic, mylar, crushed glass on aluminum 
On loan from the artist 

Face K is from a series based on images of pyrite rocks made with a flatbed scanner. Each work is a translation of these scans, using reflective industrial materials, delicate engraving, and ink painting. 

Leslie Shows, a Los Angeles-based artist who grew up in Juneau, questions the colonial tendency to assign only aesthetic or industrial value to the non-human world. She seeks to disrupt or disorient the viewer into seeing something anew. She says, “Maybe there is something more within a stone that can be discovered, or listened to … Not just used but related to.”    

Susan Joy Share, (b. 1954)
Stressed and Crumpled #8, 2020
Paper, crayon, acrylic sizing
On loan from the artist

For Susan Joy Share’s Stressed and Crumpled series, she applies crayon and acrylic sizing to paper that is repeatedly crumpled and unfolded. The resulting works look almost like topographical maps, evoking seasonal change — warm red in the autumn and green in the summer. Share’s crumpling and stretching of the paper echoes the geological forces of uplift and erosion that shape mountains over time.

Tamara Wilson, (b. 1986) 
Pull Station, 2018 
Mixed media 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, 2020.2 

Fairbanks-based artist Tamara Wilson’s Pull Station incorporates wood, felt, and a plastic fire-alarm pull. Wilson was inspired to create the piece after working on a maintenance crew, inspecting the fire suppression system at a large facility. The work combines elements culturally coded as male and female, interior and exterior.

Image of two women working on the pipeline during a warm summer day, c. late 1970s
Anchorage Museum, Alice Puster Collection, B2019.17a

In the mid-1970s, the demand and high wage for workers on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline drew over seventy thousand people to Alaska. Thousands of women were among them; a 1965 Executive Order signed by President Johnson required equal hiring practices for federal contractors. The positions women held ranged from secretaries and maids to oilers, technicians, and general laborers.

Alice Jean Puster was born in 1927 in Pomona, California. She moved to Anchorage in 1962, working as a photographer for The Anchorage Times. She is thought to be the first female photojournalist working in Alaska. This photo comes from her archive, which is in the process of being organized and accessioned to the Anchorage Museum archives.

Image of Anchorage Community College practical nurses, graduation, 1964. 
Anchorage Museum, Ward Wells Collection, B1983.91.C6260.1 

Throughout history, women have worked as caretakers and healers in their homes and communities. With the rise of hospitals in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, nursing became one of the few professions that welcomed women. Nursing remains a gender-segregated profession. with women making up 91 percent of the workforce, according to the 2010 census.   

Image of classroom scene in Anaktuvuk Pass, 1962. 
Anchorage Museum, Ward Wells Collection, AMRC-WWC-3421-218 

During the 1800s, male teachers in the US began moving out of the profession and into higher-paying occupations. Female teachers, meanwhile, were perceived to possess gentle and caring dispositions suited to working with children. Some of these biases persist today, and women continue to dominate the teaching workforce. In Alaska in 2017, 71 percent of teachers and instructors were women. Men in the profession, however, earned 19 percent more on average in salary. 

Image of Marvel Crosson in plane, c. 1920-1929 
University of Alaska Fairbanks Collection, Crosson Family Papers, UAF-2006-0103-00560

In 1748, French daredevil Élisabeth Thible became the first recorded woman to fly in an untethered hot air balloon. In 1910, seven years after the Wright Brothers’ famous first flight, French aviator Raymonde de Laroche became the world’s first female licensed pilot. Despite proven abilities, women generally were restricted to support roles in general aviation until the 1970s. Today, women make up only 8 percent of certified pilots.  

Alaska has no shortage of female aviators. Marvel Crosson was the first woman to earn a pilot’s license in the Territory of Alaska. In 1932, Irene Irvine Ryan became the first woman in Alaska to fly solo. Ruth Jefford was the first woman to fly a commercial air taxi and to serve as a licensed flight instructor at Merrill Field in the 1940s. Ellen Paneok was the first Alaska Native woman to earn a pilot’s license in 1979. Captain Tara Wright and First Officer Mallory Cave became, together, the first Black women to pilot an Alaska Airlines flight in 2018.  

Image of Women’s Army Corps members printing, 1945
University of Alaska Fairbanks Collection, Betty Etten Wiker Papers, UAF-2003-175-16

Before World War II, the US military employed women only as civilians. In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed legislation enabling the commissioning of women in the US Army, creating the Women’s Army Corps, or WAC. In 1978, the US Army abolished WAC and integrated women into the regular Army. 

During World War II, Ladd Field in Fairbanks, now known as Fort Wainwright, was an Army Air Force staging base for sending planes and other supplies from the United States to Russia. A total of 128 WAC members became “Ladd’s Lasses.” While there were some jobs unavailable to women, WAC positions included office work, airplane mechanics. and radio and control tower operators. 

Mary Louise Milligan Rasmuson, who helped found the Anchorage Museum in 1968, was a member of the first graduating class of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, or WAAC (the immediate predecessor to WAC) in 1942. Rasmuson became the director of WAC in 1957, a position she held for over five years. 

Image of Mardy Murie sawing wood at camp, n.d. 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Collection, NCTC Archived Museum, MAMurie15

Mardy Murie, the first woman to graduate from what is now known as the University of Alaska Fairbanks, studied Arctic wildlife and ecosystems in Alaska during the 1920s and the 1950s. Along with her biologist husband, Olaus Murie, and with their baby son in tow, Mardy explored the remote headwaters of the Old Crow River that flows from Arctic Alaska into Canada. Among their important findings was the discovery that large animals such as caribou need vast areas of undisturbed land to thrive. Their collaborative scientific work and conservation advocacy helped lead to creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by US Congress in 1980. 

Ada Blackjack, c. 1920-1930 
Dartmouth College Library Collection 

In 1921, twenty-three-year-old Ada Blackjack of Nome accompanied a team of four American and Canadian men on an expedition to Wrangel Island. The island is located eighty-five miles northeast of Siberia, and weather conditions are extreme.  

Blackjack joined the expedition as a skin and fur seamstress for a $50-per-month salary, to help fund her son Billy’s health care needs. She joined with the understanding that there would be other Iñupiat along, but later found that she was the only Alaska Native and the only woman on the expedition.

In 1922, a resupply ship failed to arrive, due to extensive sea ice, and the expedition ran dangerously low on food. In January 1923, three of the men departed on dogsled to find help and never returned. Blackjack cared for the remaining man, who was gravely ill, until his death in June. She was rescued by ship, the sole survivor, in August 1923. 

Blackjack’s son Billy later remarked, “I consider my mother, Ada Blackjack, to be one of the most loving mothers in this world and one of the greatest heroines in the history of Arctic exploration. She survived against all odds.” 

Image of Alaska Nellie and her trophies, Lawing, Alaska, n.d. 
Anchorage Museum, Fred Henton Collection, B1965.18.741 

One of the most celebrated outdoorswomen in Alaska’s history is Nellie Neal-Lawing, known as “Alaska Nellie.” She was an accomplished hunter and guide, and the first woman employed by the US government in Alaska, contracted to supply lodging and food to railroad workers.  

Neal-Lawing operated two roadhouses, one at Grandview, north of Seward, and another at Curry, north of Wasilla. A third, near Kenai Lake, Neal-Lawling turned into a museum to display her hunting trophies and memorabilia. She kept a record of all visitors to her museum, numbering over 15,000 at her time of death. The list included two US presidents, the crown prince of Bulgaria, and numerous movie stars. 

Fred Machetanz, (1908-2002) 
Miowak, 1937 
Oil on board 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, gift of Mrs. Levi browning, 1972.106.1 

Mayugiak (Miowak) was the eldest daughter of the last chief of Unalakleet, and an important leader in her community. In the video, one of Mayugiak’s great granddaughters, Ella Anagick, provides a narrative about her life and relationship with Fred Machetanz.

In many communities throughout Alaska and the North, women hold powerful positions of leadership. Often, this leadership is cultivated and expressed through informal relationships: offering wisdom and counsel, delivering babies, teaching skills to young people, and caring for the elderly. Although it often goes unrecognized in history books, this leadership is critical for community health and survival.  

Lidiya Ilyina, (1915-1994) 
Women of the World, 1964 
Linocut print
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, gift of the Union of Soviet Artists, of the Former U.S.S.R., 1972.97.38 

Soviet artist Lidiya Ilyina’s linocut print depicts women of different ethnicities and nationalities advocating for peace. Ilyina was a graphic artist from present-day Kyrgyzstan, known for depicting female subjects— women in power, young female students, and female workers in rural areas. 

Apayuq Moore, (b. 1984) 
We Can Do It, 2014 
Acrylic on canvas 
Collection of the Anchorage Museum, Rasmuson Foundation Art Acquisition Fund, 2014.7.1 

In this painting, Yup’ik artist Apayuq Moore casts Indigenous leader and civil rights legend Elizabeth Peratrovich in the role of “Rosie the Riveter.” The original Rosie the Riveter print was popular during World War II for the way it upended stereotypes and showed women contributing to the war effort. Elizabeth Peratrovich was a Tlingit civil rights leader and her impassioned testimony and activism played a key role in getting the first racial anti-discrimination law in the United States passed by the territorial legislature in 1945.

Moore uses the symbolism of Rosie and Peratrovich to advocate against the industrialization of Bristol Bay. The artist makes an analogy between the fight to protect salmon and their habitat and the work of earlier generations who advocated for women’s and Indigenous rights.