The Haines Sheldon Museum has received a donated collection that staff say is the largest addition to the museum in decades.
The 24 art pieces and artifacts came from the late Donna Willard-Jones of Anchorage, many of them returning to their original home in the Chilkat Valley, including a totem by master carver Edwin Kasko and a blanket designed by Nathan Jackson and worn by Willard-Jones on a Chilkat Dancers’ international tour.
No formal assessment has been done on the value of the donation, but museum director Brandon Wilks estimated the items could be worth up to $100,000.
The price tag speaks to the quality and quantity of the new art, but Wilks said the value to the museum lies in its ability to fill gaps in the story of the region’s history. Wilks specifically pointed to the museum’s Alaska Indian Arts section, which currently includes a number of temporarily borrowed items.
“This new collection allows us to have a robust record of that time period, where the art of the Chilkat Valley almost disappeared, but these artists were able to bring it back for future generations,” said Wilks.
Though some of the pieces were purchased by Willard-Jones later in life during a career as an accomplished lawyer, others came from her time in the Chilkat Valley, where she spent her young adulthood. Willard-Jones was a Chilkat Dancer, and the museum’s archival photographs show Willard-Jones, and then-husband Wes Willard, in the Chilkat Valley, wearing regalia now in the collection.
Willard-Jones’ longtime friend and executor Mildred Link said that regional connection was the reason she decided to send the art to the Haines museum. “These were all things that had begun their lives in (the Chilkat Valley).”
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