Elizabeth James Perry

Elizabeth James-Perry (Aquinnah Wampanoag, born 1973) is a Native American artist and marine biologist. She creates wampum beadwork, woven textiles, porcupine quillwork and other art forms of Eastern Woodlands Native people. She was a 2023 National Heritage Fellow.

Early life and family Elizabeth James-Perry was born in 1973. Her mother, Patricia James-Perry (Aquinnah Wampanoag, born 1944), specializes in scrimshaw. While traveling in Europe, Elizabeth learned about colonists' mistaken belief that the paint on the Wampanoag clothing was, according to her, "fine lace on leather". As of March 2023, James-Perry lives in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. In 2021, James-Perry worked on Radiant Community, one of the two installations in "Garden for Boston", a collaboration with Ekua Holmes outside the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Paige Curtis described Radiant Community, in which the Cyrus Edwin Dallin statue Appeal to the Great Spirit is surrounded by corn, beans, and sedge grass in reference to the Three Sisters of Indigenous agriculture, "as a counterproposal to [the statue], asserting the beauty of a neighboring community now facing rampant gentrification." She also worked as an artist-in-residence and teacher at Amherst College from 2021 until 2022.

In September 2023, she started two solo exhibits: Double Arrows at Tufts University and Seeping In at the Mead Art Museum.

Awards and honors In February 2023, James-Perry was announced as one of the eight 2023 National Heritage Fellows. She was the first Wampanoag person to be selected as a fellow.

2010 Heard Museum Art Market Textile Division First Place Boston Children's Museum Cape Cod National Seashore Salt Pond Visitor Center Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center Peabody Essex Museum Roger Williams University