Gail Tremblay

Gail Tremblay (born 1945) is a Mi'kmaq and Onondaga writer and artist. A professor at The Evergreen State College since 1981, she lives and works in Washington State. Tremblay received a Washington State Governor's Arts and Heritage Award in 2001.^[2]

Background[]

Tremblay was born on 15 December 1945 in Buffalo, New York.^[1] She received her BA in drama from the University of New Hampshire and an MFA in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Oregon, Eugene in 1969.^[1]

Writing and education career[]

She currently teaches at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She has been a faculty member of Evergreen State College since 1981.^[3] In writing she is largely known for poetry.^[4] Tremblay also writes essays about other artists for exhibition catalogues and books. She wrote the catalogue essay, "Speaking in a Language of Vital Signs," for the 2008 exhibition catalogue, Joe Feddersen: Vital Signs at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University.

Visual art[]

Tremblay combines traditional techniques and materials with contemporary artistic expression, such as her woven pieces and baskets,^[5] created from experimental materials such as exposed film. Her poetry and art is inspired by her cultural heritage, sometimes drawing on traditional Native American motifs.^[3]

Her aunts taught her basketry techniques and forms which she reinterpreted through the use of film stock and film leader as materials. Tremblay's art draws from Native American history, Indigenous cosmologies, literature, Western movies, and other pop culture references. For example, she created a basket using red and white film leader entitled, And Then There's the Business of Fancydancing, inspired by Sherman Alexie's film, The Business of Fancydancing (2002), where the main character, a Spokane man, has a love relationship with a white man. As she said, "I chose to use Porcupine Stitch because there are so many difficult and prickly relationships between characters in this film.”^[6]

Artweek reviewer Marcia Morse writes, “Gail Tremblay addresses the troubled history of her own indigenous heritage in And Then There is The Hollywood Indian Princess (2002). Using the Fancy Stitches of Iroquois basketry, Tremblay–instead of the traditional ash splint and sweet grass–has used recycled 16 mm leader and film on sexually transmitted diseases, elegantly subverting multiple stereotypes.”^[7]

Collections[]

Tremblay's artworks can be found in museums and public collections including:

• Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR (And Then There's the Business of Fancydancing..., 2011) ^[6]
• Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
• The Department of the Interior, Washington, DC
• Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University, Salem, OR (An Iroquois Dreams That the Tribes of the Middle East Will Take the Message of Deganawida to Heart and Make Peace, 2009)
• Microsoft, Seattle, WA
• Oregon Convention Center Extension, Portland, OR
• Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR (Basket and In Great Expectations)^[8]
• Portland Community College, Cascade Campus, Portland, OR
• Smithsonian / National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC (Strawberry and Chocolate, 2000)^[9]
• Tri-Met North Interstate Light Rail Station at Portland Boulevard, Portland, OR
• University of Washington, School of Medicine, Olympia Clinic
• Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA

Solo Exhibitions[]

• 2018 Re-Imagining Film Images of American Indians, Froelick Gallery, Portland, OR
• 2017 Art of Gail Tremblay, Eastern Washington University, Cheney, WA
• 2016 Unweaving the Colonial Discourse, Froelick Gallery, Portland, OR
• 2013 Reframing Images, Conceptualizing Indigenous Art, Froelick Gallery, Portland, OR
• 2009 Recycled Images/Iroquois Forms, Froelick Gallery, Portland, OR
• 2005 Iókste Akerweriá:ne/ It Is Heavy on My Heart, installation at Palacio das Artes, Belo Horizonte, Brazil (part of the 5th Encuentro dos Performances)
• 2002 Gail Tremblay: Twenty Years of Making, Sacred Circles Gallery, Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center, Seattle, WA
• 1998 Installation and Retrospective, Gallery IV, The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA
• 1995-1996 The Empty Fish Trap Installation, Sacred Circles Gallery, Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center in Seattle, WA
• 1988 Gail Tremblay: Fiber, Metal, Wood, Museum of the Plains Indian, Browning, MT
• 1984 Bemidji State University, Bemidji, MN
• 1982 Gallery 4, The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA

Published Works[]

• Night Gives Women the Word (Omaha Printing Company, 1979)
• Close to Home (University of Nebraska, 1981)
• Indian Singing in 20th Century America (CALYX Books, 1990)
• Farther From and Too Close to Home (CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2013)

References[]