INDEX Berkeley was a Blast! Pablita Velarde Award J.J. Brody Honour Award Board Elections NAASA Online into 1999 Letter from the President '99 Topic Proposals 1997-99 Board Member

Newsletter Volume XII, No.1 February 1998 Berkeley was a Blast! The Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology welcomed NAASA members to beautiful Berkeley and Bay area sites during the October 1997 conference. The conference was held at the International House on the Berkeley campus with its stucco walls, tiled floors and carved and painted ceilings. True to its reputation California had perfect weather for the duration of the conference. Through the tireless efforts of Barbara Takiguchi and Ira Jacknis the membership was introduced to the Bay areas museums, collections and cultural sites all which included fine selections of Native, Spanish, and Asian cuisine at its receptions and on tours. More importantly they introduced us to the California indigenous and diaspora artists who opened our ears, eyes and hearts to the unique history, culture, food and art making of their region. Who could forget Frank LaPenaâs passionate love of Mount Shasta and the people who see it as the centre of their world, or Fonsecaâs saga of Coyoteâs birth, travels and retirement, or Judith Lowryâs haunting images and cupid torch scenes? Kate Duncan reports that the NAASA Pre-Conference tour on Wednesday, October 15, first took an enthusiastic group of approximately thirty to the Oakland Museum to see its permanent display on California Indians. "Rebecca Dobkins then toured us through the strong and thought-provoking exhibit Memory and Imagination-The Legacy of Maidu Artist Frank Day, which she had co-curated. After enjoying a hardy array of Vietnamese specialities at Le Cheval Restaurant, we bused to the Oakland Army base for a behind- the- scenes look at the Oakland storage facility. Tour members checked out the computerized documentation system and searched for ethnographic treasures in the glass-covered drawers of California Collects, the museumâs new open storage system prototype which in time will be made available to the public." "It was hard to extract the group from the collections to head over the Oakland Bridge to the De Young Museum where docents gave tours of the South American, Mexican and Northwest Coast collections. After refreshments across the street at the California Academy of Sciences we saw the small exhibit The Rugs of Teec Nos Pas, from the Belikove Collection. Members were especially excited again to move behind-the-scenes, this time into storage of the Elkus Collection. Although especially strong on Southwestern arts, there were Northwest Coast, Arctic, and Subarctic pieces of interest in the CAS collection. Returning to Berkeley, participants agreed that it had been a full and engaging day." The conference itself offered some new venues for scholars and member participation through the introduction of Research-in-Progress sessions organized regionally. The local host, the Phoebe Hearst Museum, was responsible for organizing two California artist plenary sessions on the first and second day while Aldona Jonaitis organized the third plenary session on Repatriation. All organized and open sessions included artist presentations primarily at the request of organizing chairs. Hopefully this trend will encourage an open dialogue between all member interests from making art, historisizing it, collecting it and curating it. A congratulations on jobs well done go to all the session organizers and presenters for making NAASA at Berkeley an exciting, stimulating and memorable conference. There were many highlights to the closing of the conference starting with the art auction. Thank you to all the artist donors and purchasers of artwork. A special thank you goes to the Dockstaderâs who made a private donation. Your generosity enabled us to support many presenters at this conference who otherwise may not have been able to attend or present papers. In the process we gain new members and add to the group dynamic of NAASA. The auction was well received by members and set the tone for the exciting evening ahead. The International House staff put on a delicious and elegant dinner banquet in their auditorium while members were introduced to the NAASA honoris, Pablita Velarde and J.J. Brody. Look further in this newsletter for presentations by Jonathan Batkin and Marsha Bol who gave insight and humour into the lives of these respected artist and scholar. The evening finale was no anticlimax. Sandra Price was inspired to organize a wearable fashion show of both traditional and contemporary fashions from the Northwest and Plains regions. Members were treated to animated exhibitions of beaded runners, leather jackets, traditional Inupik parkas, and a Salish wedding dress to mention a few. It was a dazzling demonstration of wearable art! After all that excitement the Post-Conference Tour was made to order for tired conference goers. We headed out past the Bay area bustle and arrived in a quiet and lovely park where the Marin Museum was located. Here we looked at exhibits of toys and games and had an opportunity to grind nuts and work with shells. The museum was surrounded with gardens of plants used in basketry and with reconstructed dwellings from what was originally a Miwok village founded on the site. The group went on to the Kule Loklo archaeological site, a short but beautiful walk among the eucalyptus trees where we had an incredible box lunch and listened to Sylvia Thurman give an account of Miwok history and cultural practices. The highlight was our visit inside the roundhouse constructed on the site where visitors were introduced to roundhouse etiquette while learning about the traditional symbolism of the roundhouse. And just to make sure that we had a real taste of California, Barbara Takiguchi and Ira Jacknis took us out to Point Reyes to run along the beach and watch the waves breaking. The evening was topped off with an elegant dinner in Point Reyes Station. The fresh ocean air and great company was a perfect ending to a great conference. The next day as I made my flight north over Mount Shasta on a clear day I knew that California stole a piece of my heart that week.