-
-
Jim Stritzel / 2 Bear
British Columbia Metis Federation
Something More, 2020
copper
50.25×42 inches
“Symbol of pebble dropped in water is common in Coast Salish art. Here Rain Drops on Salish Sea becomes symbol.
“Felt was ‘Something More’ in symbol. Doing work revealed Rain Drops are Salish Sea transformative Circle of Life gift by Raven.
“Raven’s fresh water gift in Creation time evaporates. Rising, falling right back as Rain Drops or falls on land as rain/snow. Flowing back, recreating Salish Sea after nourishing land, plants, animals (including two-leggeds).
“Words, thoughts heard/dreamed from work in progress:
“Rain Drops…..Salish Sea
Calming…..Balance
Ancestors…..Calling
Journey…..Within”
“Waves alive -undulating, heaving, troughing, yawing, blending Rain Drops into Salish Sea transformation.
“Rain Drops have darkened center. Inviting one to ‘Journey Within’ Salish Sea and oneself.
“Work all hand done. No power tools used.
“Respectful thanks to Salish Elders who gave permission to work in their style.
“Also to Puyallup Nation for stewardship of land for untold generations where IN THE SPIRIT occurs.”
-
-
Chholing Taha
Cree First Nations
Lost Birds Returning, 2018
wool, silk, ultrasuede, brass bells, glass crystals
46×54 inches
“Our awareness of the tragedy of murdered and missing Indigenous women has at last been given the the public awareness that is so needed. Crises need to be unveiled, but also action is required after the initial shock, seeing this is real, is very important. Here I address the critical action necessary from communities/families/friends to welcome home the lost birds in Indian Country. Whether the Sister is alive, still missing, or has moved on from this life, this shawl welcomes them all within its woolen arms.”
-
-
RYAN! Feddersen
Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation
Two Birds Both Dead, 2019
glass
13.75×7 inches
RYAN! Feddersen
Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation
Coyote Restored in Starlight, 2019
glass
12×11 inches
“In my art practice, I utilize traditional Plateau storytelling applied to contemporary issues, historical research, and digital tools, to create material applications which interrogate official histories, examining how what we think has been formed by the information we have been taught. I explore creative strategies to activate participation through interactive materials, crowd sourced content, and social practice. These approaches enable my work to start conversations about a broad spectrum of subjects by offering opportunities for interaction and introspection.”
To find out more:
Website: ryanfeddersen.com
Instagram: @ryanfeddersen
-
-
Peter Boome
Upper Skagit
Prayer Rattles (female, male), 2019
hand carved from reclaimed yellow cedar, with glass inlay, horsehair, deer hooves, sea shells, sitting in hand carved basket stands from yellow cedar and cottonwood root, with acrylic paint
15×4×5 inches
Peter Boome
Upper Skagit
sunshine on the mountains, 2020
acrylic paint on canvas
24×36 inches
“Art is everywhere, lines, curves, shapes, and colors, surround us. I am a Coast Salish Artist. My art is rooted in a historical design tradition which is a direct reflection of my culture; it is also a reflection of my personal, cultural, and spiritual world view. I believe art influences and guides us in many directions. If you accept that art and culture are intrinsically connected you realize that art, like culture is malleable, while based on a historic foundation both continue to evolve and expand. Our use and need of art is as strong as our use and need of culture. As an artist representing a distinct culture there is an obligation to carry our artistic tradition with utmost care and respect, by honoring the past, representing the present, and laying the foundations for the future. My work strives to tell stories of our past, present and future.”
To find out more:
Website: araquindesigns.com
-
-
Shawn Brigman
Spokane Tribe of Indians
Salishan Sturgeon Nose Canoe Column, 2019
blown and hot-sculpted colored glass
26×5×5 inches
“During my 2019 Indigenous arts residency working with the hot shop team at the Museum of Glass Tacoma, I explored the manifestation of ancestral Plateau village implements through the medium of glass, celebrating their subtle, curved refinements. Plateau village implements like basketry, fish harpoons, horn spoons, and root digging sticks were historically packed into the bark sturgeon-nose canoe for movement on the water to distant root digging grounds in March, and the salmon harvest sites like the historic Kettle Falls fishery beginning in June. I celebrate and highlight this Plateau canoe heritage in glass, manifesting Indigenous village patterns since time immemorial based on family, work, and recreation all linked as one. As a Plateau-specific cultural form, the glass canoe forms represent the marriage patterns, food gathering patterns, Indigenous knowledge, and even a fish for perhaps it was the sturgeon that once inspired the shape and design of the ancestral canoe.”
To find out more:
Website: shawn-brigman.squarespace.com
Facebook: @shawn.brigman
Instagram: @salishansturgeonnosecanoes
-
-
Kurt Poste
Squaxin Island Tribe
basic cedar hat (low tier), 2020
cedar bark (red)
7.75×6.5×12.5 inches
“With the reintroduction of native culture and practices. Sometimes basic teaching premises are discarded for extravagant presentation. This art piece exhibits various bark weaving styles from common plaiting, to intermediate braiding. Visualizing past ancestral times brought an entry level view, without status, class or title. All tying in together one purposefully end goal, Shade-hat.”
-
-
Micah McCarty
Makah
Sign of the Time, 2020
elder red cedar, horse hair, acrylic, graphite PPE
11×7 inches
“Covid-19 mask over Wildwoman Mask, Sign of the Pandemic”
To find out more:
Facebook: @Micah-McCarty-507922293059343/
Twitter: @klaowus
-
-
Lily Hope
Tlingit
Chilkat Protector, 2020
Chilkat weaving on thigh-spun merino and cedar bark warp, merino weft yarns, tin cones, and ermine tails
7×7.5×.25 inches
“Our Chilkat robes woven on the Northwest Coast of Alaska have been worn in ceremony for hundreds of years. For memorials, for naming ceremonies, for celebrations. Our dancing robes record history, chart clan migration and tell stories. Chilkat Protector is recording our history NOW. Telling our story NOW. Charting our future NOW. Bringing past to present.”
To find out more:
Website: www.lilyhope.com
Instagram: @lilyhopeweaver
-
-
Jeffrey Veregge
Port Gamble S’Klallam
Gentleman George, 2020
digital Giclee canvas
36×36×2 inches
“Gentleman George was inspired by my Great-Uncle Ivan “Ivar” George, who along with many brave men stormed the beach of Normandy; June 6th, 1944, better known to the world as “D-Day”. My Uncle not only survived, but also lived to finish his WWII tour in Western Europe as part of the US Army. In spite of seeing the horrors of war, and coming home to a Washington state county that had many establishments refuse service to him for being Native American, he maintained a great sense of humor, love for family, love for fishing and enjoyed spinning a great tales for his many nieces and nephews through the years. He was the bravest and toughest man I have ever known. He lived to be 88 years old, and I loved him very much.”
To find out more:
Website: www.jeffreyveregge.com
Facebook: @jeffreyveregge
-
-
Kelli D. Palmer
Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs
Blue Corn Husk Hat with Feather Design, 2020
hemp strings, dried corn husk, rayon raffia, cotton fabric with beads and shell accent
9×10 inches (25 inches diameter)
“For the upcoming year I have been enjoying the ability to just create. Spending a lot of time at home now I find that working on my weaving has been keeping my spirits up. This basket hat represents my freedom to just create.”
-
-
Dan Friday
Lummi
Owl Totem, 2020
hand-sculpted glass
17×4×6 inches
Dan Friday
Lummi
Forager Totem, 2020
hand-sculpted hot glass
27×7×7 inches
“Grandpa Joe’s (Joseph Hillaire) totem poles were different, and very contemporary at their time, he had his own style. In a time when many Native peoples were isolated and adapting to their rapidly changing surroundings, Grandpa, with his stories and Totem poles, shared the ways of the Lummi, and Coast Salish people. His poles were notably in the 1962 World’s Fair and in Kobe Japan. Some of his poles still stand today.
“The stories and lines in my Totems are subtle. I often look to personal experience and expression for the themes. I am grateful for my grandfather and his modern approach, it empowers me as I find my way. Our work is different, but a common message is that ‘we are still here.’
“I think anyone who can find their own voice in whatever they do is very lucky.
“Creativity was fostered by my family from an early age. Living without TV and knowing our rich cultural heritage of the Lummi Nation, meant that making things with our hands was a regular activity.
“I typically work with simple themes and forms, and often employ the subtle silhouettes of glass when making my totems. It is a pleasure seeing inanimate objects taking on a life of their own. The more narrative work is usually a personal expression or a means of processing a life event, often with an underlying statement.
“When I saw glass blowing for the first time, it felt as though I grew an inch! That is to say, a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. I had finally figured out my path. This was no small feat for someone who, as a youth, was rebellious and misguided. Glass altered my life. In spite of my colorful past, and by the grace of a loving community, I found my passion in glass.
“Living as an artist may not be directly saving the world, but perhaps we are saving ourselves and hopefully, in the process, making the world a better place.”
To find out more:
Website: www.fridayglass.com/index.html
-
-
George A. Zantua
Tlingit and Haida
Spirit Quest, 2020
acrylic on canvas
18.5×14.5 inches
“The Great Spirit Bear is known by the Tsimshian, Tlingit and Haida on the Northwest Coast of Canada and Alaska to be a symbol of power, strength, and courage. Through proper song and the Drum, one will come to develop the confidence to assume this strength and courage in one’s quest through life.
“The Spirit Quest painting is a visual representation of this Quest.”
-
-
Matika Wilbur
Tulalip
Wilson Mungnak Hoogerdorn and Oliver Tusagvik, Inupiaq, 2019
photograph on Mahnemuhle fine art paper
20×24 inches
“Matika is one of the nation’s leading photographers and founder of Project 562. Project 562 is a multiyear photography project in which Matika journeyed 400,000 miles to capture images of Native Americans from more than 500 sovereign nations, visiting and photographing Indigenous folxs from all 50 states along with South America and New Zealand. The result is an unprecedented repository of images and oral histories that accurately portrays contemporary Native Americans and Indigenous peoples.
“Wilson Mungnak Hoogendorn and Oliver Tusagvik, Inupiaq brothers from Nome, Alaska, were the first to summit North America’s highest peak, Mount Denali, in the 2019 climbing season.
“I asked them how they prepared: ‘Doing hard things,’ Wilson chuckles.
“‘If you’re just constantly doing hard things, it’s a blip upward if you want to go. Do something crazy,’ Oliver explains.
“Wilson agrees, ‘Just doing hard things makes everything easier.’ They recall walking into the ranger station to register to climb and being met with sideways glances.
“‘Are you sure?’ the ranger asked.
“‘Probably because we didn’t look fancy’… Wilson mentions that most of the people that climb have really expensive equipment and many even have sponsorships. Despite doubt, they proceeded to break trail for the 2019 season at the third most prominent and isolated peak on Earth, after Mount Everest and Aconcagua. Denali, a kuyokon word that means “high”, “tall”, or “great one” is the highest mountain in North American at 20,310 feet above sea level.
“Oliver turned 22 years old a couple of months after the climb. He just graduated from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Biology. Wilson is 21 and is attending the University of Alaska Anchorage, majoring in aeronautical studies and recently earned his pilot’s license.”
To find out more:
Website: matikawilbur.com and www.project562.com
Facebook: @Project562
Instagram: @project_562 and @matikawilbur
-
-
Carol Emarthle Douglas
Northern Arapaho
Twenty-Nine, 2019
traditional coiled basket/single hemp cord foundation, 4-ply waxed linen threads
6×11×11 inches
Carol Emarthle Douglas
Northern Arapaho
Buffalo Thunder, 2020
1 mm round reed core, natural & dyed raffia, beading thread
1.5×1.5×2 inches
“The coiled basket titled Twenty-Nine brings awareness to the MMIW (Missing Murdered Indigenous Women) movement. The red dresses represent Native American women and the red hands are also a symbol of the movement. Twenty-nine is the statistic that represents the average age women are murdered or missing.”
Website: www.cemarthleart.com
Instagram: @cemarthle
-
-
Quentin DeCoteau
Jamestown S’Klallam
Beautiful Day, 2019
ink on vellum paper, matted and framed
20×26×32.8 inches
“Beautiful Day came to be after a particularly nice day at Woodland Park Zoo and a visit to the butterfly exhibit. As we watched the delicate creature fly here and there, the image of this piece developed in my minds eye. I thought to myself, ‘I’ve never seen a butterfly on a rainy day…. they must only come out on beautiful days.'”
-
-
Jennifer Wood
Yup’ik
Rising Waters, 2019
basswood, gel medium, pigments, bone beads, seed beads, lava stone beads
16×9×2 inches
“Rising Waters has a meaning which can go one of two ways: the literal dangers and threat of rising waters, especially as our planet warms, or the feeling of one’s own strength and power growing. I’ve been really inspired by the activism of Native people, especially the growing numbers of young people. As many of the issues we face today are associated with water, I see this empowerment as wound up with the waters we rely on.”
To find out more:
Website: https://yupikjen.com/
Instagram: @yupikjen
-
-
Tony Boyd
Colville
Crow, 2020
framed print
24×33 inches
“Creation of artwork, I believe, is an attempt to understand a connection of our people, nature, and land and also all that we hold sacred.”
To find out more:
Instagram: @tojoboyd
-
-
Denise Emerson
Navajo and Skokomish enrolled
Ancestors, 2020
plexiglass
17×18 inches
“After graduating from the UW with a BFA in Graphic Design, I began mapping bead designs in Excel, each cell represents a bead. Along with mapping my designs in Excel, I studied historical photographs of Native people. I view the photographs as ancestors looking at me. The focus of my art is to represent them in today’s world. My interest is representing women, babies, and children.
“My father was Navajo and he taught me that the Navajo tribe is matriarchal. His words have directed me in the interest of representing Native women. These two art pieces are of women I’ve been working on for five years. I create each figure in a separate spreadsheet, and when I feel the images are ready to combine in one spreadsheet, this is when I begin creating the composition. When the composition is finished, I work on color combination. This finishes the art piece.”
To find out more:
Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/NeeceesAncestralArt
Instagram: @dineskok
Facebook: @denise.emerson.12
-
-
Linley B. Logan
Onondowaga (also known as Seneca Nation)
Wolf with Lipstick Rattle, 2019
recycled materials
4×3×22 inches
“I have a history of being creatively conscientious in incorporating recycled materials like plastic containers in my work. The original Wolf with Lipstick Rattle was made when I attended Puhoro, the 9th International Indigenous Visual Arts gathering hosted at the Turangwaewae Marae outside of Hamilton, New Zealand in November of 2019. I gifted the original rattle to the Turangwaewae Marae community. The rattle sits on a large carved public art piece that was gifted to the Marae community.
“The rattle is made from a New Zealand plastic milk container.
“This is the first rattle I have made using recycled plastic containers.
“As indigenous people, we have always creatively utilized the resources available to us which in pre-contact were natural resources only. We have access to man made resources today, and as an indigenous artist I recognize the value of using all the resources available to me which includes recycling man made waste materials into art.”
To find out more:
Website: https://my.getjealous.com/linleyblogan
-
-
Cynthia Masterson
Comanche Nation of Oklahoma
Recipe For A Quarantine, 2020
Czech glass beads, Swarovski crystals, iPad, found household objects
12.5×24×20 inches
“Recipe For A Quarantine reflects my experience during the COVID-19 outbreak in spring 2020. My husband and I are following the stay-at-home orders together in Ballard, Washington.
“Each beaded design element is drawn from what is happening around us. The upended world shook me to move away from my usual palette of Comanche colors and design patters I might never have created.
“Much of our time and thoughts revolve around food. Planning, getting, storing, preparing, eating and cleaning up. We never use this whisk and every time I see it in the drawer, I want to bead it.
“I use my iPad often to find recipes and to use Zoom, Facetime, and Facebook. Personal Zoom calls are out of the norm, fun highlights during our confinement. Connecting and re-connecting is entertaining, educational, and essential.
“As of this writing the future is uncertain, but the sun continues to rise.” 
Recipe for: A Quarantine
Serves: Much of the World
Dash of Virus
People – Separated
Zoom – if in season
Lots of time
Cherry Blossoms- bloomed and faded
City Streets
Endless news cycle (optional)
One Homemade Face Mask for each serving
Combine a dash of virus with people. Use caution, a little goes a long way. Infect just a few before physically separating yourself from all the people you know and love. Add Zoom if available. Use the time to take long walks all over your neighborhood and glaze quarantine with wonder from the cherry blossoms. Sprinkle with the amount of news you can tolerate.
Use restraint, some may have adverse reaction.
If quarantine results in your death, toss out entire batch and try again in another lifetime. If quarantine results in another’s death let rest in heartbreak mixed with solitary stunned confusion and try to make sense of it all.
Store quarantine for weeks to months and serve in a homemade face mask.
To find out more:
Website: http://www.bluedotbeadwork.com/
Instagram: @bluedotbeadwork
Facebook: @bluedotbeadwork
In 2006, the Washington State Historical Society and the “House of Welcome” Longhouse Education and Cultural Center at Evergreen State College began a partnership with the intention of celebrating the best emerging contemporary Native art in the region and providing a venue for an annual exhibition that would highlight the efforts of these artists juried by experts in the field. The result was the first In the Spirit: Contemporary Native Arts exhibition. 
