Button blankets and the myriad of imagery featured upon them have served as a wearable statement of family and clan histories, as well as personal identity, for generations of wearers. While always a canvas for their maker’s design skills, contemporary artists like Hazel Wilson have truly made these robes a fine art. Festooned with copper buttons, an outlined tree frames a lone figure on the robe, itself embellished with beads, shells, and trim. The tree itself has beaded branches that run like pathways over the green expanse. The vibrant visual statement of this work harkens to some of Wilson’s best-known works in the Golden Spruce series, possibly placing this work as a study for that series.

References: For another example of a similarly styled robe, see First Arts, Toronto, 4 December 2023, Lot 66, and Walker’s Auctions, Ottawa, 16 November 2016, Lot 107. For more on the artist’s life and work, see Robert Kardosh, Robin Laurence, and Kūn Jaad Dana Simeon, Glory and Exile: Haida History Robes of Jut-ke-Nay Hazel Wilson, (Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing / Skidegate: Haida Gwaii Museum, 2022).

AC