Kashaya Portraits:
Historic and Contemporary

Sneak preview Friday, January 20, 5:00 to 8:00 pm
February 26 - May 27, 2012
Museum closed for exhibit installation from February 6 - 25 at 5:00 pm

Public Lecture - Friday, January 20, 6:30pm
Lecture Admission $8 members/$10 non-members

The exhibition, Kashaya Portraits: Historic and Contemporary, highlights the cultural heritage and generational continuity of the Kashaya Pomo people through past and recent photographs. In the early 1960s, photographer William Heick, working on the American Indian Film Project for the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Berkeley, visited the Stewart’s Point Rancheria. He recorded images of the Kashaya Pomo, including iconic photographs of revered spiritual leader, Essie Parrish. Parrish, the last local Kashaya spiritual leader, passed away in 1979, but her daughters and close family members have carried on the Kashaya language and traditions in a secluded corner of northern Sonoma County. Fifty years after his father, William Heick, Jr., has photographed the Kashaya, portraying a living, contemporary culture, as well as the remarkable legacy that is passed from generation to generation. The exhibition will feature the photographs of William Heick, Jr. and selected photographs by his father.

Kashaya Portraits is part of the ongoing commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Fort Ross. The Kashaya were the first people known to have lived in the area that is now Fort Ross State Historic Park.