'MY LIFE WAS TEETH'

UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA When Tanya Plainfeather-Gardner approached Trey Hill, her ceramics professor at the University of Montana, about creating 500 porcelain elk tooth replicas for an elk-tooth dress, he was cautiously optimistic. Making teeth sounded like something they could do, but 500 was a lot to make. Plainfeather-Gardner had never done anything like this before, and Hill estimated the project would take her at least the entire semester.

She told him that even if she couldn't make 500 teeth in time for graduation, she'd use whatever she had for the dress. That way, the project would still be a success, even if she fell short of her target. That wasn't necessary.

Plainfeather-Gardner hit her goal in one weekend. "I started molding, and I was like, 'Trey, I have 500,'" Plainfeather-Gardner recalled, laughing. "And he's like, 'Oh, you weren't kidding, huh?'" She didn't stop there.

Over the course of her final semester of college, Plainfeather-Gardner, who is Crow, handmade about 1,500 porcelain elk teeth, 900 of which were used to create an elktooth dress. Plainfeather-Gardner is 52 years old, and studying art wasn't originally in her plans. She received her associate's degree in Native American studies from Little Big Horn College in 2007.

Afterward, she worked as a law enforcement officer and a truck driver. By 2020, she knew she wanted to do something different. After her youngest daughter graduated high school, Plainfeather-Gardner enrolled in UM to pursue a bachelor's.