Ready, Quilling, and Able

Join us for a quillworking demonstration today, part of our program series featuring Native American Craft!

See our special exhibition George Catlin and His Indian Gallery at the Renwick Gallery and participate in some of our exciting public programs.

Today Dorothy Brave Eagle (Oglala Lakota) demonstrates quillworking—an American Indian craft form that is depicted in many of George Catlin's paintings. In the 1932 artwork shown above, a Lakota chief, Ha-wón-je-tah, or One Horn, displays intricate quillwork on his clothing.

Below, a Sioux cradle, made about 1835, shows another use for decorative porcupine quills George Catlin wrote that the "cradle" in his Indian Gallery "was purchased from a Sioux woman's back, as she was carrying her infant in it . . . the bandages that pass around the cradle, holding the child in, are all the way covered with a beautiful embroidery of porcupine quills, with ingenious figures of horses, men, etc."

The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum is located at Pennsylvania Avenue and 17th Street N.W., across the street from the White House. Meet at noon today in the Grand Salon for the quillworking demonstration.

Pictured top: George Catlin, 1796–1872, Ha-wón-je-tah, One Horn, Head Chief of the Miniconjou Tribe (Western Sioux, Lakota), 1832, oil, 29 x 24 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.

Pictured bottom: Eastern Sioux; Cradle; about 1835; wood, hide, porcupine quills, tin; Lent by the Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., Catalogue no. E073311.