By Pam Walatka

The last of the late Florence Pulford’s collection of quilts, such as the one daughter Ann Wilson displays at right, along with bead work, dolls, above, and other artifacts, is now being offered up for sale. Many of her pieces have already been sold to museums.

Los Altos Hills is home to a spectacular collection of Native American quilts. The late Florence Pulford spent the last 22 years of her life facilitating and preserving the art of quilting among her Native American friends.

Although many of Pulford’s quilts have been sold to museums or private collectors, more than 100 remain.

In addition to the quilts, the collection includes many extraordinary items of bead work, dolls, and other artifacts. The collection, valued at $500,000, is for sale.

Cancer spurs visit

That trip was the beginning of 22 years of friendship with people from the Cree, Crow, Gros Ventre, Assiniboine, Sioux, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara tribes.

On that first visit, she noticed the women making wonderful quilts, but with inadequate supplies. She returned home to Los Altos Hills to provide the talented quilters with better fabrics.

She soon returned to the reservation, but this time with a horse-trailer load of colorful material. Until overcome with her illness, she repeated a cycle of giving fabric to her friends, buying some of the resultant quilts, and bringing them home.

Four times a year, for a month at a time, Pulford lived with her Native American friends. Each time she went, she took fabric, and came back with quilts she had purchased. She made a difference in the lives of her friends by helping them do what they loved - making quilts - and make some much-needed money.

The quilt makers loved color, and Pulford was able to supply them with colorful cloth. She had a great eye for the creative use of color. Pulford died in 1989.

Reflections in book

“As my visits increased, defenses began to drop and relationships started to bloom. These wise women shared knowledge that I treasure, teaching me to look at nature, art and life through their eyes.”

The Pulford collection features work by Almira Buffalo Bone Jackson.

Pulford wrote, “Almira … is one of the most talented, innovative Indian artists I have met in 20 years of traveling the reservations. Almira’s joy of life is abundantly evident in her quilts. She is as vibrant as they are. She thrives on color and design. Color is such an integral part of her life that occasionally she signs her letters to me, ‘Your friend of raucous colors.’ … Almira’s favorite grandson calls her his ‘pink grandmother’ because of her love of color. Almira says, ‘My body might get old, but my mind doesn’t get old. I have the colors there.’”

Quilts have replaced buffalo robes as sacred ceremonial blankets for many Native Americans. The dead are wrapped in quilts. Young men on vision quests wrap themselves in quilts.

The Morning Star, of huge significance in Native American culture, forms the basic design in most of the quilts. The morning star is seen as the light by which spirits travel to earth, linking people with their ancestors.

Pulford was deeply touched by a ceremony called the “Give Away” - a gathering in which people honor the deceased by getting together to celebrate life, share food, and give each other precious things, often quilts. She found the Give Away to be a positive, healthy, generous way to honor the dead.

When she died, Pulford’s family held a Give Away for her.

Besides collecting art, Pulford tape recorded many hours of interviews with tribal elders. Warm and easy-to-talk-to, she elicited the oral history of her friends’ ancestors.

For more information about the art collection and the history tapes, contact Pulford’s daughter Ann Wilson at 948-0132 or philannwilson@aol.com.