by Emily West Hartlerode

Amid the busy year-end holidays, OFN received sad news that 2007 National Heritage Fellow, Pat Courtney Gold passed away on July 11, 2022. We delayed our announcement to give space from holiday distractions to let this news to have its own time.

Wasq’u basketmaker and citizen of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Pat Courtney Gold, grew up on her nation’s reservation where the Columbia River basin and high desert region meet in central Oregon. In her youth, she was taken to a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school, went on to earn a B.S. in mathematics and physics from Whitman College, and became a professional mathematician and computer specialist.

Pat Courtney Gold presents at OFN’s 2013 Arts in Parks series. Photo, Riki Saltzman.

Childhood visits with her mother to museums displaying traditional Wasq’u artwork inspired Pat to study and help revive the full-turn twining technique, unique to her community. The result was a resurgence of Wasq’u “sally bags,” twined root-digging bags with a traditional function for harvesting and storing traditional food. “The baskets were important because those were our containers,” Pat said. “We would catch the salmon, filet them, dry them and sell them as filets or we would pound the filets into a powder salmon-like pemmican. That’s what we traded. So the baskets were constantly being made because when we would trade the salmon we would trade a container and all. I always thought that was an interesting way to keep the skill of making baskets going” (11/11/2021 interview by Wisdom Of the Elders). It’s impossible to overstate the significance of awakening this sleeping tradition, which restores Indigenous wisdom and knowledge, revitalizes cultural form and function, and embodies Indigenous values and pride in ways that have therapeutic impact on intergenerational trauma.

Pat Courtney Gold presents at OFN’s 2013 Arts in Parks series. Photo, Riki Saltzman

By 1991, Pat was following a new career path dedicated to the preservation of her cultural heritage. She became a participant in Oregon Folklife programming in 1995 during Oregon Historical Society administration by folklorists Carol Spellman and Nancy Nusz. Pat’s work was widely recognized for artistic excellence and merit. She was a 2001 recipient of the Oregon’s Governor’s Art Award; a 2003 honoree of the First Peoples Fund Community Spirit Award and their 2004 Cultural Capital Fellow; and the National Endowment for the Arts bestowed upon her the highest honor given to traditional artists, the Heritage Fellowship, in 2007. She accepted numerous speaking and exhibiting opportunities in the Pacific Northwest, nationally (including the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian), and internationally (China, New Zealand, Canada, and England). She also helped found the NW Native American Basket Weavers Association.

Pat Courtney Gold presents at OFN’s 2013 Arts in Parks series. Photo, Riki Saltzman

Like so many of our nation’s finest traditional artists, Pat explored her creative boundaries beyond traditional structures. During Pat’s 2009 Eric and Barbara Dobkin Native Artist Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research (Santa Fe), Pat utilized SAR’s collections to research and gain inspiration for what became her two-dimensional wall hangings. One of these weavings is proudly displayed in the IARC vaults. SAR’s documentary video of Pat’s time in residency provides a heart-warming glimpse of the thoughtful way she explored her culture, her relationship with the land, and her expressive creativity.

Pat Courtney Gold presents at OFN’s 2013 Arts in Parks series. Photo, Riki Saltzman

Pat was engaging audiences through Oregon Folklife Network programming as recently as 2016, and giving interviews as recently as Nov 2021. In her public presentations, Pat married the skills of a trained mathematician and traditional artist, describing baskets as spirals and twining as binary computation. She captivated Indigenous and non-Native audiences alike, weaving left- and right-brain perspectives like cordage. Many have been blessed by Pat’s gifts of time and talents. We celebrate her life and trust that her invaluable impact on culture in what is now Oregon will endure.