Medium: Weaving
Alutiiq artist Vickie Era has been weaving, teaching, and showing and selling her artwork professionally since the early 1990s, although she began learning when she was quite young from her mother. Vickie has also studied under and worked with many of the Northwest master basket weavers from the Puyallup, Lummi, Makah, Quinault, Tlingit, Skokomish, and Chehalis tribes.
Vickie’s family was from the village of Katmai and relocated to Bristol Bay after the volcanic eruption of 1912 buried the village. Vickie’s mother, Anna, was an accomplished basket weaver and beader. Anna learned weaving growing up in a Missionary Boarding School and Orphanage at Unalaska in the Aleutians. That is where Anna met Benny Benson, the designer of the Alaska State Flag. Benny later became Vickie’s stepfather.
In 2019, Vickie received a grant and to start the First Pacific Northwest Alutiiq Culture Camp (PNWACC) in Olympia Washington at the Evergreen State College. She said it was dream come true and that, “securing artist Hanna Sholl to put together a program . . . was extremely successful and exciting.”
Vickie uses many materials in her weaving. These include Western Red Cedar bark, Yellow Cedar bark, Spruce Root, Sweetgrass, Bear Grass, Beach Ryegrass, Wild Strawberry runners, Salmon skin, Fern, Seaweed, Raffia Grass, Ti leaves, Au Bark, Palm, Porcupine quills, and beads.
Artist Gallery
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The Alutiiq Museum Store works with many of the artists in this gallery. Visit the store to see more examples of their work.