Cherish Parrish
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Cherish Parrish | |
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| Born | 1989 (age 36–37)[1] |
| Citizenship | Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan and American |
| Known for | Basket making, birchbark biting |
| Website | woodlandarts |
Cherish Nebeshanze Parrish (born 1989) is a black ash basket maker and birchbark biter.[2] She is a member of the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan and of Odawa descent.[3]
Parrish is a sixth generation black ash basket weaver, having learned the craft from her mother, artist Kelly Church.[3]
Parrish was one of the recipients of the Michigan Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in 2006.[4] She also participated in the 2006 Smithsonian Folklife Festival as a "Next Generation Weaver".[5] Parrish won best of show in the 2012 Eiteljorg Museum Indian Market, representing the first time a basket had taken the top honor in that show.[6]
Using the pliable bark of black ash trees she harvests from the swamps of the Michigan wetlands, Parrish weaves tightly woven baskets.[7][8] While she continues the tradition of free form weaving, her work was transformed with the introductions of weaving around a mold.[9] She also creates birchbark bitings in the tradition of the Anishinaabe of Michigan.[3]
Parrish honors women by creating baskets that mimic the shape of women's bodies.[10] Her work The Next Generation—The Carriers of Culture, featured in the 2019 exhibition Hearts of our People, is a black ash basket that replicates the curves of a pregnant woman; the work was described by artist Jonathon Keats as embodying "the unity of utility and beauty by relating basket and belly, while simultaneously suggesting that the future of a people is borne through heritage as much as biology."[11]
