It has dream catchers, jewelry, beadwork, carvings and cards. And now it has a name.

Amid wafts of sweet-grass smoke, prayer and song, the Ron Hilbert Gallery at the Chief Seattle Club in Pioneer Square received its name last week, in a ceremony that celebrated the special role of a little-known gallery with a big impact.

Who knew that amid the other galleries to sample during the First Thursday Pioneer Square Art Walk was the Chief Seattle Club? But sure enough, there were the snacks, the flowers and the artists to meet and greet. And selling their work, of course, not only on First Thursday, but five days a week, in the gallery hosted by the club.

Open about two years, the gallery last week was named for the late Ron Hilbert, a Tulalip/Upper Skagit artist and cultural advocate whose lifelong dream was to have a gallery for native people in Pioneer Square, family and friends said at a ceremony.

The Ron Hilbert Gallery offers something different: It's a sales venue especially for members of the Chief Seattle Club.

The club is the only agency in Seattle/King County devoted exclusively to the needs of homeless urban American Indians, Alaska Natives and First Nations people. It provides everything from a hot breakfast and the pleasure of each other's company to health services, housing assistance and a studio for carving, leather working, beading and other traditional arts.

Materials and tools are provided, and the works can either be donated by the artists for sale at the gallery, or sold on consignment, with the club keeping 30 percent of the sales price — put back into the cost of running the studio.

For customers, it's a chance not only to buy authentic native-made art, but also to help out the club and the artist — who just might be homeless.

Or not. The fellowship of other native people draws a diverse community at the Chief Seattle Club.

Kristi Gansworth was beading a design on a recent First Thursday evening. A Rainier Beach resident working on her master of fine arts degree in creative writing, she said selling her beadwork is a way to pay her bills — just as her people, the Anishinaabe-Ojibwe, have always done.

Gansworth said she comes to the Chief Seattle Club to enjoy the company: "I miss everybody at home, and I miss being with other natives."

She learned beadwork from her aunt, and was at work on a pair of beaded leggings.

For other club members, artwork offers healing and peace of mind. "It relaxes me," said Deanna Keahna, also a bead worker. She said she was homeless when she first started coming two years ago, but with help from the club now is in housing on Capitol Hill.

Every day, some 200 members come to the club for basic needs, from getting hot meals and showers to making long-distance phone calls, financial assistance or doing their laundry. The club is a gateway to other services, from on-site health care to drug and alcohol assessment and a legal clinic.

So far in 2011, more than 1,600 natives from 129 different tribes have received services at the club, 300 more than last year, and have eaten 42,000 meals.

Keahna, of the Meskwaki Sac and Fox Tribe, said she makes medicine bags, dream catchers and earrings for sale in the gallery. On First Thursday she said she likes mixing it up with the other artists.

"I like the different cultures; it is so intriguing to learn about everyone's background," she said.

The gallery would have been a particular pride to Hilbert, noted Barbara Brotherton, curator of Native-American art at the Seattle Art Museum.

Hilbert, as it happens, had a studio in the same area as the studio at the Chief Seattle Club, before it was renovated, friends remembered during the naming ceremony.

"His spirit is here," said Jenine Grey, executive director for the Chief Seattle Club. "And he would have been so very proud."

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @lyndavmapes.