The nation’s highest honor for folk and traditional arts has been awarded to Yvonne Walker Keshick, a porcupine quillworker from Northern Michigan, who is among the 2014 honorees joining the ranks of the prestigious National Heritage Fellowships, a lifetime honor awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C.
“Because Yvonne Walker-Keshick was born in the autumn of 1946, her tribal name is Falling Leaf. One of the five children of Levi and Josephine Walker, she is the descendant of a long line of excellent quillworkers. Her grandmother, Mary Anne Kiogima, was reputedly one of the finest quillworkers of the early twentieth century. Quillworkers embroider designs on birchbark containers with natural and dyed porcupine quills. Walker-Keshick began making porcupine quill boxes in 1968 with her aunt and teacher, Susan Shagonaby.” More here and here.
