Carla Hemlock (Kahnawake Mohawk Nation, b. 1961)

Hemlock’s work, which has won many awards, is housed in the collections of major museums such as the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. McLerran believes there are many ways Hemlock’s artistic expression reveals a feminist ethic. “Turtle Island Unravelling,” one of Hemlock’s quilts, uses turtle imagery, female mythological figures, Native cosmology and the image of an oil derrick to address the environmental issues posed by the oil and gas industry through the practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Turtle Island is the name given to North America by many indigenous peoples.

“Hemlock questions the wisdom of practices such as fracking, reminding her viewers that humans bear the responsibility to be the earth’s caretakers,” McLerran said. “She superimposes a web across the cosmic turtle’s back to remind us of the fragile web of life that humans in general, and Iroquois women in particular, are entrusted with protecting.”

Other pieces of Hemlock’s art address issues such as gender discrimination and violence toward women.

-- Jennifer McLerran (https://news.nau.edu/carla-hemlock/)