Black received her MA in interdisciplinary studies from
York University in Toronto, Ontario, and a PhD in art history from the
University of Victoria in British Columbia. Both degrees were focused on Heiltsuk art and museum collections. Black worked with the Heiltsuk community, both in her research and in the collaborative museum exhibit
Kaxlaya Gvilas at the
Royal Ontario Museum. As she wrote: "The Royal Ontario Museum holds a major but little-known collection of Northwest coast native art and artifacts acquired by the Reverend Dr. Richard Whitfield Large at Bella Bella, British Columbia between 1899 and 1906. Although the R. W. Large Collection is one of the most important Heiltsuk collections in existence because of its unique documentation, there had never been a comprehensive study of it". Black undertook a study of the collection in her 1997 book
Bella Bella: A Season of Heiltsuk Art and worked with the Heiltsuk to produce an art exhibit based on the collection with a number of contemporary pieces. She described the collection gathered in Bella Bella by the Missionary doctor R. W. Large. The collection, unusual for its associated information allowed Black to provide biological information about five named Heiltsuk artists. The exhibit ''Kaxlaya Gvi'ilas'' was a partnership between the Heiltsuk, the Museum of Anthropology at the
University of British Columbia, the Royal Ontario Museum, and Black. A collaborative exhibit, it contained a combination of historical works from the Royal Ontario Museum's R.W. Large Collection and contemporary artwork from the Heiltsuk village of
Waglisla (Bella Bella). The exhibit traveled after its initial showing in the Royal Ontario Museum to Vancouver (MOA 2002), to Montreal at the
McCord Museum, followed then to
Owen Sound, Ontario. Black curated a number of exhibitions at the
Royal British Columbia Museum, including
Nłuut’iksa Łagigyedm Ts’msyeen: Treasures of the Tsimshian from the Dundas Collection (2007),
Huupukwanum · Tupaat: Out of the Mist, Treasures of the Nuu-chah-nulth Chiefs (1999),
Nisga’a: People of the Nass River (2001) and
Argillite: A Haida Art (2001), and was co-curator of the Royal Ontario Museum's travelling exhibition,
Kaxlaya Gvilas: "the ones who uphold the laws of our ancestors" (2000). Black died from cancer in
Victoria, British Columbia, on 7 January 2024, at the age of 78. ==See also==