Porcupine Quill Embroidery on the Plains: From Center to Fringe

The Farrell Auditorium Free Candace S. Greene, ethnologist emeritus and research associate, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, delivers the Donald Danforth Jr. Lecture on Native American Art. Embroidery using brilliantly dyed porcupine quills was once the most prominent and prestigious of crafts among Plains Indian women. This talk will showcase some early examples of this beautiful art form and explore how it moved from center stage to appear most commonly in a secondary role as the wrapping on fringe.