The Art of Carrying On : Art: Exhibitions such as the current show of Native American weaving continue while the Southwest Museum ponders its fate.

Will the beloved Southwest Museum remain in its historic home on Mt. Washington, or will it move to Thousand Oaks, Santa Clarita, San Dimas or Temecula? Will the museum’s charming but inadequate building be expanded on its current site, or will Southwest officials decide that the vast collection of Native American art would be better served by a more modern structure in another location?

Such is the drama that has swept the museum into the hearts of neighborhood preservationists--and into the news--during a quest to solve the Southwest’s space problems. And such is the intensity of feeling about the institution that the building dilemma has obscured the museum’s programs.

But life goes on in the Southwest’s galleries. The latest evidence is “Woven of Earth and Spirit: Weaving Traditions of the Pacific Northwest,” an exhibition (through May 29) of late 19th- and early 20th-Century baskets and textiles from the Pacific Northwest. Curator Cheri Falkenstien-Doyle has chosen about 200 examples for the show, including a rare Chilkat dance apron, a corn husk bag used by a Blackfoot chief, a Haida ceremonial hat that resembles an inverted funnel with an over-size spout and a group of basketry-covered objects produced for the tourist trade by the Makah people.

The woven containers, clothing and furnishings on view fulfill a variety of functions--both mundane and exalted--and they are fashioned of everything from wool and silk to reeds, roots, grasses and feathers. What the objects have in common is a technique of weft twining, Doyle said. The method entails wrapping and crossing fibers by hand around vertical supports, or warps, without using a weighted loom.

Except for two objects borrowed from museums in Juneau--a contemporary version of a traditional raven’s tail robe, loaned by the Alaska State Museum, and a Salish basket from the Wickersham State Historic Site--all the exhibited works belong to the Southwest Museum. Indeed, one reason for organizing the show was to display finely crafted pieces that generally languish in storage, Doyle said. With a holding of 13,000 baskets and 4,000 textiles and costumes, the museum can only show a tiny fraction of its collection at a time, she noted.

But “Woven of Earth and Spirit” is fundamentally an educational and aesthetic adventure in which intricately woven goods deliver messages about the art and life of Native Americans in the Northwest Coast, Arctic and Plateau regions of North America. Visitors who read panels of text learn that weaving in the Pacific Northwest was essentially women’s work and an integral part of native culture.

“Long before European contact, women living north of the Columbia River made and exchanged basketry and textiles, transporting them along the coastal waterways that allowed travel for trade, intermarriage and warfare,” one panel says.

Weavings could be containers for food and medicine or protection from the cold, but they could also be expressions of spiritual and material wealth. Woven goods were used as commodities long before European explorers and traders arrived in the Pacific Northwest, Doyle said. Professional weavers made useful goods for their own families, but they also accepted commissions from other members of their tribes. Baskets and textiles were often traded along with products carried in them, enhancing the value of the package.

“Over time, weaving became part of a cash economy that ran on somebody else’s rules,” Doyle said. Forced to use their traditional skills to produce objects for a non-Native American market, the weavers turned out curiosities and realistic animal patterns that appealed to foreigners.

A sampling of 32 basketry-covered objects is obviously out of sync with traditional forms and motifs shown elsewhere in the exhibition, but the quality of weaving is astonishingly fine. “This is commercial weaving, but it’s not junky. It’s very good stuff,” Doyle said, pointing out one of her favorite pieces, a snail shell that is perfectly encapsulated in exquisite weaving.

* “Woven of Earth and Spirit: Weaving Traditions of the Pacific Northwest,” Southwest Museum, 234 Museum Drive, (213) 221-2164. Tue.-Sun., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Ends May 29.