George Blake (1944-)

George Blake (Hupa-Yurok Tribes) is a Renaissance Man of Native arts and crafts.  He is a jeweler, working in gold, silver and shell; a painter, sculptor, makes carvings, leatherwork, feather-work, canoes, regalia, and traditional crafts.  He has been active as an artist since the 1960s.  Additionally, he is a traditional teacher, was Director of the Hoopa Tribal Museum, Hoopa, California, in 1980-84 and Co-curator of the exhibition “Carving Traditions of Northwest California” at the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Berkley, California, in 1995.

Blake’s awards and exhibitions are too numerous to list here but one such exhibit in which he was represented is “Lost and Found Traditions — Native American Art 1865-1985.”

He grew up during the “Termination Era,” when federal Indian policy sought to assimilate native peoples into the mainstream.  The net result of the social experiment was human suffering and loss of cultural identity.  Blake responded by searching out the elders who retained traditional knowledge, while encouraging people his own age and younger to get involved in their culture.  The results are a successful model for cultural revival efforts being made throughout the Western Hemisphere and indigenous peoples around the world.  Schaaf 2003