Teri Rofkar, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Teri Rofkar

Date of Birth: 27-Sep-1956

Place of Birth: San Rafael, California, United States

Date of Death: 04-Dec-2016

Profession: weaver, basket weaver, textile designer

Zodiac Sign: Libra

Teri Rofkar, or Chas' Koowu Tla'a, (1956-2016) was a Tlingit weaver and educator from Sitka, Alaska.
She specialized in Ravenstail (Raven's Tail) designs and spruce root baskets. Rofkar was born on the 27th of September, 1956 in San Rafael, California and grew up in Pelican and Anchorage, Alaska.
In 1976 she moved to Sitka, Alaska, the town her grandmother was born in, raising three children with her husband Denny Rofkar.
She died on the 2nd of December, 2016, at age 60.Rofkar learned weaving from her grandmother Eliza Monk, as well as Delores Churchill (Haida), Ernestine Hanlon-Abel (Tlingit) and Cheryl Samuel.
She began her professional career as a weaver in 1986.
She wove the first Tlingit robe made completely from mountain goat wool in more than two hundred years, but also worked with contemporary materials and technology.In 2004, Rofkar won the Governor’s Award for Native Art in Alaska.
She was selected for a USA Rasmuson Fellowship from United States Artists in 2006.
Rofkar was a recipient of a 2009 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States' highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
In 2013, she received the Distinguished Artist Award from the Rasmuson Foundation and a Native Arts & Cultures Foundation Artist Fellowship.