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Butterfly Dreams Throw Blanket
- $99.00
Butterfly Dreams Throw Blanket
- $99.00
For the Blackfeet, the butterfly is the bringer of good dreams. You will often find butterflies on painted tipis and in the beadwork of Blackfeet people.
Blackfeet/Piikani artist and Inspired Natives® Collaborator John Isaiah Pepion drew inspiration from the butterfly designs that flit across the rawhide parfleche designs of the Plains Indians. Traditional parfleche are beautifully embellished rawhide containers, decorated by painting, incising, or both. This unique throw blanket is a beautiful modern interpretation of these traditional designs, wrapping the wearer in a wish for good dreams and untroubled sleep.
- Made in USA
- 100% cotton
- Blanket size: (60" X 50"/ 152.4 cm x 127cm)
- Colors include cream, dark red, ochre yellow, and blue
- Machine wash in cold water on gentle cycle, mild detergent
- Non-chlorine bleach when needed
- Tumble dry
Thank you for supporting Inspired Natives®, not "Native-inspired."
Cultural Context:
A parfleche is a container made of rawhide, historically created by Plains, Plateau, and Great Basin women artists. Today, parfleches are made by both men and women, and can be everyday items as well as ceremonial. Parfleche are often highly decorated with geometric designs. Traditional parfleche artists used natural pigments such as charcoal, algae, and ochre.
This example is a parfleche box John made. It is crafted from buffalo rawhide, and John used traditional natural earth pigment to paint the “butterfly” design.
about the artist
My name is John Isaiah Pepion, and I am a Plains Indian graphic artist from the Piikani Band of the Blackfoot Confederacy. I'm based out of the Blackfeet reservation in north-central Montana, where the Rocky Mountains meet the plains. I am best known for my ledger art, which is an art tradition that developed in Plains tribes: as the buffalo hide we traditionally used for painting became scarce, Plains people were forced to adapt by making artwork on ledger paper from accounting books. I come from a family of artists, and ledger art has been in my family for hundreds of years.