Instructor: Elizabeth James-Perry
This Year's Woody English Distinguished Artist and Writers Chair
Monday - Friday
July 22 - 26
9am - 12pm
5 sessions

Open Studio: Mon - Thurs, 1pm - 4pm

Immerse yourself in a five-day Master Class Workshop with Aquinnah Wampanoag Artist Elizabeth James-Perry. Delve into the art of using natural dyes on fabrics, and learn the craft of creating baskets with sustainable corn husk on grass and bark splints. Engage in the process of incorporating natural-dyed corn husk into your creations, crafting abstract patterns that reflect the beauty of Native American culture. Elizabeth will also demonstrate the traditional skill of willow trap weavings. Join us on this artistic journey connecting heritage with sustainable creativity.

2023 NEA Heritage Fellow recipient Elizabeth James-Perry (enrolled Aquinnah Wampanoag) engages with Northeastern Woodlands Native cultural expressions, including basketry, finger weaving and quillwork and primarily sculptural and elegant woven forms of purple wampum shell-carving of the Atlantic Quahog with its connection to Native identity and maritime traditions. The artist both wild-harvests and grows species for spinning and  dyes. James-Perry also designs public and private Restorative Native Gardens and Shellscapes. Her newest work was a Blue Shark Garden in Franklin Park 2023, and a Sea Turtle Mound Corn garden created with the Native students at Amherst College 2022, following her MFA installation Raven Reshapes Boston with artist Ekua Holmes.  

James-Perry’s artwork has been commissioned at institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, and Allard Pierson Museum.  Employed with her tribe, she was the Federal Tribal Co-Lead on the Northeast Regional Ocean Planning Body. The artist is concerned with sustainability in Native lifeways, and holds a degree in Marine Science and a certificate in Digital Tribal Stewardship for Washington State University. Recent art exhibits include Double Arrows at Tufts University Art Gallery and Seeping In at the Mead Museum, and in Boundless at the same museum.