Monica Jo Raphael, Anishinaabe – Sicangu Lakota – Enrolled Grand Traverse Band Ottawa and Chippewa Indians
Monica Jo Raphael, Anishinaabe-Lakota is a culture bearer and fifth generation quill worker who comes from a long line of woodland quill artists and feels as if she’s having a dialogue with her ancestors when creating her interpretation of an art that predates European contact and the introduction of glass seed beads. Spending most of her life in the village of Peshawbestown on the Grand Traverse Band Reservation, she learned the traditional art form of quill and birch bark box making. She now makes her home in the foothills of the Wichita Mountains in southwestern Oklahoma. Her award-winning work is quickly becoming known all over the world for its clear intention to craftsmanship, unwavering dedication to patience, and has received awards at SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market, Cherokee Art Market, Eiteljorg Indian Market Festival, Heard Indian Market, Abbe Museum Indian Market, Autry Indian Market, Southeastern Art Show and Market, Artesian Arts Festival, and the Woodland Indian Market. In 2021 she was awarded the prestigious First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow and the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation LIFT Fellowship to pass on traditional quillwork knowledge. Her celebrated work can be found in several personal collections, as well as the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art, the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian