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Woven Wonders: Textile-based Coast Salish Art Unravels Local History

Indigenous weaving, past and present, on view at the Burke Museum.

A close-up of a knitted cream-colored garment with decorative patterned trim, fringes, and a button-and-loop closure.
Many Hands, overspun shawl, 2025. Haʔməkwitən Kelly Sullivan (Port Gamble S’Klallam). Mountain goat wool, alder cones, red cortinarius mushroom, deer bone, and antler.
Photo courtesy of Burke Museum

This article originally appeared in the March/April 2026 issue of Seattle magazine.

On display now at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Woven in Wool: Resilience in Coast Salish Weaving examines the traditional art form and its importance to Coast Salish communities.

“This exhibition broadens the definition of American art by incorporating Indigenous voices and artistic practices historically marginalized due to biases against Native art and women’s work,” says Katie-Bunn Marcuse, Burke Museum’s curator of Northwest Native Art.

Working with artisans at the Coast Salish Wool Weaving Center, the Burke provides a platform for storytelling and cultural revival. The exhibition features both contemporary and historic items, including blankets, tunics, hoods, and skirts, and examines the seasonal cycle and intricate techniques behind the process.

Two traditional Coast Salish garments: one red and white with fringe on display; the other beige with fringe and a mask, resembling a human figure, featured in "Woven in Wool" at the Burke Museum against a black background.
LEFT: Chiefly Tunic, 2025, Skwetsimeltxw Willard “Buddy” Joseph (Squamish). RIGHT: Mountain Protector, 2025, SiSeeNaxAlt Gail White Eagle (Muckleshoot). Mask used at Dances, 2025, Tyson Simmons (Muckleshoot)
Photo by CHRIS SNYDER / BURKE MUSEUM

Woven in Wool: Resilience in Coast Salish Weaving runs through August 30. Tickets here. 

Seattle’s Artists of Color Expo Offers an Inside Look at the Creative Life

Seattle’s Artists of Color Expo Offers an Inside Look at the Creative Life

The October 9-11 gathering features live art-making and hands-on workshops, with Seattle artist Damon Brown delivering the keynote.

More than 100 artists participate each year in Seattle’s Artists of Color Expo & Symposium (ACES), which brings exhibitions, artist talks, live art-making, and workshops under one roof. Visitors can learn a technique from an artist or hear how a childhood memory became the starting point for a piece. This year’s event takes place October…

Seattle Author Kristen Millares Young Follows Her 'Desire Lines'

Seattle Author Kristen Millares Young Follows Her ‘Desire Lines’

Blurring the lines between desire and expectation, her debut memoir explores what women inherit, sacrifice, and claim for themselves.

In her debut memoir, local author Kristen Millares Young dives straight into precarious experience of being a woman. Blending myth, history, personal essay, and travelogue, Desire Lines (Red Hen Press), out October 6, is an unflinching look at the challenge of balancing one’s own desires with the demands of motherhood, marriage, and work, and the…

Rearview Mirror: Big Laughs at Seattle Rep, a Sloth Surprise, and a Good Read

Rearview Mirror: Big Laughs at Seattle Rep, a Sloth Surprise, and a Good Read

Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).

AGREE TO DISAGREE Earlier this week, I took my teenage daughter to see Eureka Day at Seattle Rep, and we both loved it. Jonathan Spector’s Tony-winning comedy is set at a progressive private school in Berkeley, where the people in charge insist on reaching agreement before making decisions. Then a case of mumps forces a…

Studio Sessions: Kelly Bjork  

Studio Sessions: Kelly Bjork  

Fresh off the opening of a solo gallery show, Kelly Bjork talks working in pencil, the turning point in their career, and staying authentic in their art.

A longtime fixture in the local art scene, Kelly Bjork creates works that are intimate, relatable, and that hum with emotion. Working with pencil and paint, Bjork’s illustrations—often vibrantly colored and patterned—give viewers a glance into scenes of domesticity, highlighting simple moments between humans (or between a human and a place) that make up daily…