Indigenous Creatives Roster

I am enrolled in the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe. I am also a descendant of the Spokane Tribe, and Chippewa Cree Tribe from North Dakota and South Dakota. I am Kalispel as well. Growing up in Seattle, I attended Indian Heritage High School. I lived in Iwasil, now known as United Indians of All Tribes Labateyah Youth Home, and faced homelessness growing up in my teens here. Poetry and art have always been my outlet. In high school I was chosen to share poetry at Bumbershoot. My father was an artist in Seattle and he sold art in downtown Seattle as a means of survival, he also faced homelessness. My mother also did beadwork and was an artist as well, she used to sell purses. She came to Seattle with 5 kids, stayed in shelters and different housing projects, and lived with family here. She sold art and beaded since high school, she attended Chemawa Indian School. I attended Highline Community College. My sister did acrylic art when she went to South Seattle College. I started beading over 23 years ago before my oldest son was born. I also started painting - watercolor was my first love, I now do acrylic and my goal is to start doing oils cause my dad used to do oils as well. I like art, it’s healing for me. I've lived in Seattle most of my life and came over here when I was just a baby with my auntie Louella Abrahamson. She was a Weaver and she was from Seattle area, her reservation was Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe. She taught cultural class and she tried to teach me to weave baskets as well when I was young and growing up as a teenager.

Art surrounded me growing up, many of my family members are artists. I’ve taught art classes In the community and even was teaching at a Native club here in Seattle. I volunteered at many different events here in the community in Seattle over the years. I am in recovery for 10 years now and art is a big part of that. Today I work in administration, and have worked in a non-profit for 10 years doing culture and on front lines helping Native American relatives in the community that face homelessness and are unsheltered, and still do my art. I donate a lot of my art to different organizations that are helping the communities and the homelessness. I try to bring awareness from my poems and some paintings to some of the struggles our people go throug as a Native American community.

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Seattle, WA