Kelly Church

Kelly Jean Church (Match-e-benash-she-wish Potawatomi/Odawa/Ojibwe) is a black ash basket maker, Woodlands style painter, birchbark biter, and educator. She lives in Michigan.

Background Kelly Jean Church, a fifth-generation basket maker, was born in 1967. She grew up in southwestern Michigan. Her mother is of English and Irish heritage, and her father is of Potawatomi, Odawa, and Ojibwe heritage. Church studied the Odawa language from her paternal grandmother and learned black ash basketry from her father, Bill Church, and cousin, John Pigeon. She, in turn, has taught her daughter, Cherish Parrish (Gun Lake Band Potawatomi).

Artwork Basketry Along with her family, Church harvests her own trees in swampy areas of rural Michigan. Preparing the materials takes far longer than the weaving. She removes the bark from the felled log and then splits apart the growth rings into finer and finer splints for basketry. The splints are dyed and soaked before weaving.

Church's baskets range from utilitarian fishing creels, market baskets, and bark baskets to rectangular wedding baskets and whimsical strawberry baskets. She also creates experimental baskets with her own designs that incorporate materials such as copper, photographs, and plastic window blinds – the latter a warning of what the future might look like without black ash trees. Her work reflects on the potential extinction of the black ash due to the infestation of the emerald ash borer, which is estimated to kill 99 percent of the ash trees in the United States.

Birchbark biting Church is an active birchbark biter. This precontact Great Lakes art form involves biting designs with one's eyeteeth into a folded sheet of young paper birch bark. The bit areas turn a dark brown that contrasts with the pale surface of the bark. Her designs are both abstract and representational, featuring turtles, dragonflies, and other subjects. and the 2008 Southwestern Association for Indian Arts Fellowship. In 2006 and 2008, she organized a symposium about tactics to save the black ash tree from the emerald ash borer,

The National Endowment for the Arts named Church as one of its 2018 National Heritage Fellows. The citation noted her teaching and mentorship work, which "goes beyond the artistic practice to include discussions in biochemistry, forest management, invasive pest control, traditional language skills, and deeply personal memories of family history".

Selected exhibitions 7 Artists, 7 Teachings (2009), Mitchell Museum of the American Indian. Artist & curator. Before and After the Horizon: Anishinaabe Artists of the Great Lakes (2014), National Museum of the American Indian, New York City facility. Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists (2019–21), Minneapolis Institute of Art, Frist Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, Philbrook Museum of Art. An Interwoven Legacy: The Black Ash Basketry of Kelly Church and Cherish Parrish (2021–22), Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI