HAC Workshop: "Sharing Native American Wisdom & Crafts" with Tammy Greer

HAC Workshop: "Sharing Native American Wisdom & Crafts" with Tammy Greer

Join us Saturday, August 17th from 10-1pm as we explore, play, paint, and learn about our native plant dyes and pigments. Seating is limited so be sure to get your tickets NOW!! All materials are included, and light snacks will be provided. If you would like, feel free to bring your own lunch.

RESERVATION DEADLINE - Monday, August 12

To reserve your spot or for more info please click this link: TICKETS

Sharing Native American Wisdom & Crafts with Tammy Greer:

Plant dyes and pigments were important to our Southeastern Native American ancestors as they infused beauty and meaning into life. The dark brown of black walnut, pink of pokeberry, gold of goldenrod, light brown of pecan, and reddish-brown of dock root indicated family and tribal affiliations when painted onto faces and told stories when rubbed into soft-tanned skins or painted onto carved wooden poles, arrows, spears, and rawhide. Much of this knowledge and many of these traditions are sleeping. Waking our traditions, bring home our cultural knowledge is important and crucial to walking this earth in a balanced and reciprocal way. Join us as we explore, play, paint and learn about our native plant dyes and pigments. In this workshop we will explore some of the native plants and minerals who color our world, learn about dye and pigment processing, harvest leaves and grasses to make prints and create works of art using these beautiful colors from our own Mississippi plants and pigments. All materials are included.

About Tammy Greer:

Greer Biosketch: Tammy Greer, Ph.D. (United Houma Nation) is a faculty member in the School of Psychology and Director of the Southern Miss Center for American Indian Research and Studies. She is faculty advisor to the Golden Eagles Intertribal Society, a Native focused student group who works with the Center to host a yearly powwow, Native Ways School Days, and other Native-focused events on campus. In 2005, Dr. Greer, along with other tribal folks and Southern Miss faculty, built a 1000 square foot native plant forest garden on the Southern Miss Campus. The garden, in the shape of a Medicine Wheel, nurtures hundreds of plants that our Southeastern tribes used for food, drink, building materials, weapons, dyes and medicines. With the help of those garden plants, Dr. Greer work with tribal folks to bring back aspects of Southeastern Native material culture that have been sleeping including native plant dyes, cordage, and pigments. She gives dye and pigment workshops across the Southeast and has demonstrated at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Dr. Greer is a member of the WECAN group ~ Okla Hina Ikhish Holo (People of the Sacred Medicine Trail), a group of indigenous folks who are building gardens and food forests along historical Southeastern trade routes to address food insecurity. She recently completed a Library of Congress Grant titled, “And We Are Still Here: Indigenous Culture Bearers of the United Houma Nation” with a goal of making Houma material culture visible in a national venue so that Houma youth for seven generations can see and hear their elders speak to Houma experiences and culture. She, along with an intertribal group, is working with Prospect New Orleans bring back our mound-building culture and is currently working to build an earthen mound on the Lafitte Greenway in New Orleans. Dr. Greer is trained as a statistician and works with Mississippi INBRE to train Native students to research health issues in our Southeastern tribes. She is Co-PI on an NIH grant titled Okla Achukma (Healthy People) with a goal of integrating spiritual and socio-emotional components that are rooted in culture into typical healthy ways interventions to make those interventions more holistic.