Reanna Moore-Best
rmoore-best@zagmail.gonzaga.edu
Joe Feddersen
"My work investigates sign and process - it capitalizes on a personal connection of memory interwoven in pattern. The inquiry draws with the basic elements pulled from designs of the baskets of my ancestors of the Inland Plateau Region of the Columbia Basin"
-Joe Feddersen of The Colville Confederated Tribe
"Joe Feddersen" on Vimeo. Published by Willamette University in 2015.
Joe Feddersen is a mixed media artist of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, but more specifically of the Okanagan/Sinixt tribe. He is well known for his use of geometric patterns in his different art forms, including but not limited to: sculptures, paintings photographs and basketry.
Joe Feddersen (Okanagan/ Sinixt). Canoe Journey. 2015. Froelick Gallery, Portland, Oregon. Web. https://froelickgallery.com/artists/32-joe-feddersen/works/12656-joe-feddersen-canoe-journey-2015/
Feddersen enjoys turning the world around him into geometric figures and combining these contemporary forms with his heritages' more traditional designs and patterns. In his piece titled Canoe Journey people can see many different living things riding in the canoes. He includes a deer-like creature, fish, birds, humans, trees, and even parking lots. Many tribes across the Plateau believe that everything has a soul and this includes the fairly new concept of parking lots.
Joe Feddersen (Okanagan/ Sinixt). High-Voltage Tower. 2015. Froelick Gallery, Portland, Oregon. Web. https://froelickgallery.com/artists/32-joe-feddersen/works/13927-joe-feddersen-high-voltage-tower-2015/
In continuing his love of incorporating past and present Feddersen creates a traditional style waxed linen basket with the design of a very modern technology: a transmission tower. The necessity of clean electricity in today's society has had a large impact on many tribes all across the United States; transmission towers are built and dams are constructed which more often than not leads to the removal of people and the destruction of wildlife. Nevertheless these towers are an object in our surroundings and Joe found an artistic inspiration in their design.
Joe Feddersen (Okanagan/ Sinixt). Tulip Parking Lot Alien. 2016. Froelick Gallery, Portland, Oregon. Web. https://froelickgallery.com/artists/32-joe-feddersen/works/13814-joe-feddersen-tulip-parking-lot-alien-2016/
In Joe Feddersen's piece Tulip Parking Lot Alien, he turns his two-dimensional monoprints into a three-dimensional clay sculpture. In this piece he continues to give plants and objects a soul by placing them on a human body. It is interesting how the most humanistic figure on this canoe is given the categorization of an "alien". But who does this alien represent? Does it actually symbolize a true extraterrestrial being that flies in an unidentified flying object or could it be a representation of the foreign settlers who came to the new land by boat or does it embody someone or something completely different?
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Additional Resources
"Joe Feddersen" Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art. n.d. Web. 20, March 2018. http://fellowship.eiteljorg.org/#fellows::ArtistProfile?value=49
"Joe Feddersen" Museum of Northwest Art. n.d. Web. 20, March 2018. http://www.monamuseum.org/artist/joe-feddersen