Audio Stop 738

JOE FEDDERSEN: 

When I’m in the landscape, I always think about my ancestors.  Because I came home.  I wanted to be here, where my people have lived and worked for thousands of years.

NARRATOR: 

Artist Joe Feddersen is a member of the Colville Confederated Tribes of northeastern Washington State. He returned to the reservation after teaching at Evergreen State College in Olympia for 20 years, and his work draws on the inherited customs and lands of his people. In this print, for example, geometric forms and flattened figures are inspired by traditional basket designs.

JF: 

You’ll see icons of the figures, similar to the ones on the baskets.  And kind of a merging between, you know, the iconography on the baskets and – and petroglyphs are also extremely important.  That kind of a linear quality to the figures. 

NARRATOR: 

But Feddersen’s art is not just about the past. Here, elements of the built environment exist alongside the natural world, highlighting changes and challenges in the modern landscape.

JF: 

When you look at the print you’ll see animals that are in the landscape – like the horses, and the kind of spirit people, the deer. And you see new things. You see like the little robot.  You look in the lower part, and you’ll see high voltage towers and parking lots.

It’s about the world around us. It’s about how we take care of this world and how we’re part of it.

When I think of my work, I think about this legend about how the cedar tree taught the people to weave.  And on the fourth effort, the basket maker was really making really good work.  And then the tree said to look at the world around you.  And to decorate this work with abstractions of the world around you. I think about that when I think about my work. I think about the world around me, what’s going on at this time, and the stories that we’re bringing forward.