Location: CSWS Lyceum (Room 120)
Free and open to all!
Join us at the Center of Southwest Studies for an insightful presentation and documentary film screening about the Cedar Mesa Perishables Project. Since 2011, the project has engaged the expertise of Pueblo fiber artists in its documentation of some 4,000 ancient textiles, baskets, wooden implements, and other organic cultural items excavated from dry caves in the greater Cedar Mesa region of southeastern Utah.
In this presentation, anthropologist, textile consultant, and project director Dr. Laurie Webster, together with Zuni fiber artist and team member Christopher Lewis (member of the Badger Clan and a child of the Corn Clan), will trace the project’s collaborative path and discuss how this approach has enriched archaeological understanding of ancestral Pueblo perishable technologies while also advocating for the preservation and revitalization of the Pueblo fiber arts.
The presentation will also include a screening of Languages of the Landscape: The Cedar Mesa Perishables Project, a 30-minute documentary produced by Cloudy Ridge Productions.
This is a featured event of the 2026 Southwest Colorado Humanities Roundtable History Live!
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
Christopher J. Lewis is a fiber/textile artist and educator from the village of Zuni Pueblo (A:shiwi), in New Mexico. He is of the Badger Clan and a child of the Corn Clan. He is a talented hand craftsman well known for his basketry and textile weavings as well as his cultural knowledge. He serves on the board of the Bears Ears Partnership (formerly known and Friends of Cedar Mesa). Chris has worked for well over a decade to revive basketry and other textile arts in Zuni and other nearby Pueblos. He studies ancient perishables in museum collections and contributes to scientific research projects and applies the techniques he learns from the ancient weavings to revive forgotten knowledge that he then teaches to others.
Dr. Laurie Webster is an anthropologist and independent scholar who is considered a leading expert on Ancestral Puebloan perishable materials, especially woven objects, and textiles. She has served as a consultant for museums, federal agencies, tribal entities, and cultural resource management firms, as well as held visiting scholar and adjunct faculty appointments in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, Department of Anthropology at Northern Arizona University, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. Laurie has spent most of her career working with museum collections, and in 2011 established the Cedar Mesa Perishables Project to document early collections of archaeological textiles, baskets, and other perishable artifacts from southeastern Utah. Passionate about the natural and human history of the Four Corners region, she contributes her time to several boards and community organizations, including the Montezuma County Land Conservancy.