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A Ravenstail and Chilkat robe with more than 40 collaborators is under final assembly in Juneau. The robe will be part of the Huna Tribal House opening ceremony this Thursday in Glacier Bay National Park.

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Project leader, artist and weaver Clarissa Rizal organized the project and said the inspiration came from a conversation with Klawock weaver Suzi Williams.

“We were having this conversation about Chilkat weaving. I told her ‘That’s all I’ve been seeing is Chilkat weaving this, Chilkat weaving that. Anything Chilkat,’ and she laughs,” Rizal said.

“She goes, ‘I’ve been thinking about knitting and crocheting.’ She says, ‘You know those granny square, crocheted granny squares back in the 60s and 70s?’ She says, ‘You ever do that?’ And I says, ‘Yeah I made one of those for my mother,'” said Rizal.

Rizal said the image of the robe came to her like a vision.

“It’s a Ravenstail-Chilkat robe made by different weavers across the Northwest coast, up and down the coast right!” Rizal said. “And she (Williams) says, ‘Oh my god. And,’ she says, ‘It’s going to be used for canoe gatherings.’”

In the spring of this year, Rizal made the vision a reality.

She used her blog, Facebook and other means to officially invite Northwest Coast weavers to create and submit their own granny squares.

She crowd sourced it. The blog detailed an overview of the robe and the individual 5- by 5-inch square pieces — up to 54 of them.

“When those pieces first started coming in, it just hit me like a ton of bricks, like, oh my god, these people trust me? And, oh my god, I get to touch and feel each one of these and hold them in my hand, right? I get to hold them in my hand. And just feel the energy of each piece. And the love for weaving, the energy of each piece. I am so privileged to be the one who gets to hold these,” Rizal said.

Rizal is at work at the Walter Soboleff Center finishing the robe with help from fellow weavers and artists like Della Cheney and Rizal’s daughter, Lily Hope. 41 artists ended up contributing squares, and, with less than 72 hours to go, Rizal estimated she had some 50 hours of work left before the Huna Tribal House opening in Glacier Bay.

“I call myself ‘cutting it close Clarissa,’” Rizal said.

At the Huna Tribal House opening, the robe will be worn in ceremony to commemorate the clan house and Wayne Price’s dugout canoes.

That’s just the beginning of the robe’s tour, which will include a stop at the White House. Rizal is a National Endowment for the Arts fellow and will dine with President Barack Obama.

“So I imagine, is that I would like to put this robe on him. Wouldn’t that be cool?” Rizal said.

After touring with Rizal, and when the robe is not in use, it will be housed at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Rizal hopes is will inspire weavers for decades to come.

The National Park Service is streaming coverage of the Huna Tribal House opening on Thursday and 360 North tentatively plans to carry this coverage on television.

The latest Celebration Sessions Red Carpet Concert video features songwriter Stephen Qacung Blanchett of the Tribal Funk band Pamyua. He performs his song “Listen to the Stories” in a studio shared by Rico Worland Christy NaMee Eriksen who curated the eight-part series.

The Celebration Sessions Red Carpet Concerts are a collaboration between KTOO, Kindred Post and Trickster Company. Watch other Red Carpet Concerts with Lily Hope, Silver Jackson, and Whiskey Class.

For the second installment of the Red Carpet Celebration Sessions, we present Tlingit storyteller Lily Hope of Juneau. She performs “Ei Haaw Salmon Boy Story” in a studio shared by Rico Worl and Christy NaMee Eriksen who curated the eight-part series.

The Red Carpet Celebration Sessions are a collaboration between KTOO, Kindred Post and Trickster Company. Watch other Red Carpet Concerts with Silver Jackson, Whiskey Class,  and Dara Rilatos.

In our debut Celebration Sessions Red Carpet Concert, we present Silver Jackson led by Sitka artist Nicholas Galanin. He is accompanied by guitarist Zak D. Watt, Stephen Qacung Blanchett on vocals and Seattle-based artist OCnotes on synth. Here is their song “Perfect Mistake” off of the album Starry Skies Opened Eyes.

The Celebration Sessions Red Carpet Concerts are a collaboration between KTOO, Kindred Post and Trickster Company. Watch other Red Carpet Concerts with Whiskey Class, The Carper Family and Dara Rilatos.

Kidney failure, Obamacare, and sounds of hospital rooms all inspired Playboy Spaceman’s latest releases.

Playboy Spaceman’s latest recordings veer away from the guitar solos of their past, entering the ethereal. The song “Get Me Out of Here” teases with electronics reminiscent of medical devices. Songwriter and front man George Kuhar’s vocals are hazy and echo, grounded only by gritty drum machine fills.

He says song was recorded while  visiting a kidney specialist last year.

“It was a solo journey and I had some health concerns. I spent a few days in Seattle doing some blood work, tests and things.”

The lyrics came to him throughout the day. That night, he finished it from his Travelodge hotel room where he laid the electronic beats and vocals that would become its framework.

The song closes out their new EP, which complements Playboy Spaceman’s second full-length album that went live for download last week. Kuhar named the album “And His Father,” in honor of dad who passed away unexpectedly this spring.

The album was recorded at Peabody’s Monster, a South Franklin cooperative music space, where many of Juneau’s rock musicians can be heard practicing at night.

“It definitely has the feeling of a place where a lot of music has been played,” says Kuhar. “There’s cigarette stains in the carpet, posters all over the place and other profanities. ”

Band members Bridget Kuhar, Jason Messing, Nick Wagner and Simon Taylor all took a week off to record in their rehearsal space. But Kuhar says, the vocals just sounded wrong, “I wanted to be like a samurai and be like, swoosh swoosh — you know and done, let’s put it out there. I had to learn how to sing all over again.”

Kuhar’s experiences with the health care industry are a central theme on the album and inform his songwriting. In 2008 he received a kidney transplant from his now wife and collaborator Bridget, who plays keyboards in the band. Because of the Affordable Care Act, Kuhar was able to treat his pre-existing conditions, allowing him to take time off from his job at the hospital to finish the album.

He says he was inspired by the human perseverance he observed working in surgical services at Bartlett Regional Hospital, patients making hard decisions to overcome their medical issues, and how things become complicated with the business of medicine.

“I have a lot of frustration with the way money plays into health care. Profiting off someone’s ailment,” says Kuhar. “That part’s hard to swallow. And how we do we make that right? I don’t know.”

For now, Playboy Spaceman is taking their music north. They’re playing at the 49th State Brewing Co.’s locations in Anchorage on Friday and Healy on Saturday.

In our final Folk Fest Session Red Carpet Concert, we present this year’s Alaska Folk Festival guest artists: The Carper Family. The Austin-based quartet is Beth Chrisman on fiddle, Sophia Johnson on guitar, Jenn Miori on guitar and Melissa Carper on bass. Here is their tune “Making Memories.”

The Folk Fest Session Red Carpet Concerts are a collaboration between KTOO Public Media, Juneau filmmaker Ryan Cortes, and Gustavus sound engineer Justin Smith. Watch other Red Carpet Concerts with Foghorn Stringband, Kim Beggs, and Harrison B.