When Stomp Dance Learned to Sing the Blues

A poet, writer, educator, and visual artist, Tremblay wove baskets not with brown ash and sweet grass or other traditional materials, but with 16mm and 35mm film strips. She sourced the film stock from Westerns, documentaries, and other movies depicting Native Americans.

Tremblay commented, “I enjoyed the notion of recycling film and gaining control over a medium that had historically been used by both Hollywood and documentary filmmakers to stereotype American Indians. I relished the irony of making film take on the traditional fancy stitch patterns of our ash splint and sweet grass baskets.”