Collection puts history at our fingertips

The Olson-Brandelle Collection of North American Indian Art has established Augustana College as a major study center for North American Pueblo Indian pottery. Given in 2005 by Augustana alumnus Kent Olson '61 and his wife Elaine, the collection is comprised of 300 art objects - some of which date from the 16th Century - demonstrating a broad range of clay and textile forms and uses.

The collection is displayed in custom-built cases located in Augustana's Thomas Tredway Library, a location which provides a high-degree of accessibility to students and others who use the library during its 16 1/2 hours of daily operation. A little more than one-half of the collection can be displayed at any one time, so pieces are rotated through the display cases on a bi-annual basis. All pieces are continually available for academic study, which may range from courses in Native American history to ceramics, geology or religion.

Myk Skelton, a recent Augustana graduate with majors in art history and geography, admits having little interest in the collection before measuring the individual pottery pieces as part of the accessioning process. "Working with them…changes all that," said Skelton, adding that the found surprising connections between his majors in the architectural structures built right into the clay.

Kent Olson began amassing the collection in 1979 through individual purchases of pottery, clay figures, original prints, baskets and other textiles which continued over the next two-and-a-half decades. The collection's namesake, Olson's great uncle Gustaf Albert Brandelle, was an early graduate of Augustana College (1882) who served as pastor of the Augustana Lutheran Church in Denver and later as bishop of the Augustana Synod.

Third Mesa wicker piki tray, Ruby Chemerica (Hopi)

Black wedding vase with impressed bear paw, Sera Fina (Santa Clara)