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BIO
Carly Feddersen (b. 1982, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation) is a contemporary Native artist based in Wenatchee, Washington, whose practice examines material hierarchies and technical practices across a variety of media, through a contemporary lens. Feddersen’s artwork includes expressions of place-keeping, tradition and adornment, imbuing historical practices with a wryly ‘punk’ aesthetic.
Trained as a printmaker and metalsmith, and with a background in body modification, Feddersen’s focus on personal adornment led to the creation of an ongoing series of playful takes on the classic bolo tie, an article of clothing most often associated with the American west. For example in Self Portrait: Nose Bolo (2025) which features a mold of her own nose and septum piercing, the ties must be manipulated through the nostrils; in Slug Bolo #5 (2025), a mollusk often rife with symbolic associations with patience, rebirth and evolution, is executed in silver and basalt, the silver-wrapped tips cleverly depicting the insect’s antennae which must counterintuitively deploy away from the insect’s body to adjust the tie.
Feddersen deftly probes the concept of preciousness and inherent value in her jewelry, often opting for ubiquitous igneous stones found in the Pacific Northwest, which she smooths and carves meticulously into refinement, exposing inclusions and fissures formed over the millennia of the rock’s existence. In Deer Hearts (2023), elk teeth, long-considered a symbol of prestige in tribal Plateau culture, hang in pendants from a string of lamp-worked glass beads, adorned with scrimshaw and inset with diamonds, skillfully layering histories, techniques and challenging cultural perceptions of value.
Her practice additionally incorporates basket-making, in which her contemporary language and imagery are expertly comingled with the traditional. For example, in How Are You Feeling? (2025), she adapts imagery from a mental health screening questionnaire; another basket, Coyote and the Shoo Mesh Bow (2022) combines Syilx folklore with Nintendo.
Synthesizing popular culture and aesthetics, Feddersen’s multi-disciplinary approach follows a trajectory of Indigenous creative expression, adapting new materials and concepts to culture, simultaneously exploring history and contemporaneity through her unique perspective.
