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. Background. Tremblay was born on 15 December 1945 in Buffalo, New York. 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. 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. In writing she is largely known for poetry. 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, 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. 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.” "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.” Collections. Tremblay's artworks can be found in museums and public collections including: