The Elizabeth Cole Butler Collection.

The Elizabeth Cole Butler Collection.

The Elizabeth Cole Butler Collection.

Museum Purchase: Native American Art Council funds.

Museum Purchase: Funds from the Native American Art Council.

The high heeled tennis shoes, size 6, used for the base are made by shoe designer Steve Madden. Then the artist, Teri Greeves, hand sews all the beads and original design elements onto the canvas base. The design is inspired by the Great Lakes tribes’ designs, as Teri's husband, furniture designer, Dennis Esquival, is Anishinabe and she wanted to do something that reflects his region. Floral motifs, in complimentary colors are on the inside panel of each shoe with a coral, spiny oyster shell cabochon forming the center of each flower. The outside panels depict contemporary jingle dress dancers swaying to the throbbing drums and singing that accompanies these popular dances performed during powwows. During these dances each woman competes not only in dance performance but in over-all quality and beauty of their dance regalia. Before the 1830s the jingles on these dresses would have been made from porcupine quills but this material changed sometime in the mid-1800s to commercially traded tobacco can lids, rolled into cones. When prolifically sewn on to the dresses every movement would make them jingle. Each woman depicted on these shoes wears full regalia, inclusive of beaded dress, moccasins, and a belt with real silver conchos. This detailed beadwork melds traditional technique with modern day commerce into a lively, fun and remarkable sense of contemporary aesthetics. The shoes can stand alone as aesthetic sculptural works or as examples of creative change over time.

Large contemporary woven string bag (bilum) decorated with dyed stripes, different types of shells, chicken feathers, wooden beads, branches with seeds, small fan-shapes made of cut-up plastic packages, possum jaws, boar tusks and pieces of tapa cloth.

Necklace made from a single large, crescent shaped piece of shell painted red, with a thick, woven, red coloured neck strap. A round piece of dyed red skin with fur is attached by a short string to the centre of the neck strap.

Two unmodified oyster shells. Spotty brown discoloration on exterior of shells. Grey and white discoloration on interior and exterior. L. Penttila 4/1/2010

AMEC Analysis: (none)One unmodified oyster shell. Some spalling from outer surface, especially attached barnacles. Red/brown discoloration on interior. L. Penttila 4/1/2010