Vicki Lee Soboleff

Vicki Lee Soboleff (born 1962) is a Haida and Tlingit artist, dancer, and teacher who specializes in Haida basketry. She was awarded the Margaret Nick Cooke Award in 2016 from the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the Alaska Humanities Forum for her work with Alaska Native dance.

Biography Soboleff was born in Seattle, Washington, and raised in Ketchikan, Alaska by Vesta Johnson, her grandmother. She is Haida Nation of the Brown Bear House. Starting from age 11, her grandmother alongside Nora and Robert Cogo passed down Haida traditions, songs, dances, and the Haida language to her.

During her 20s, she became a member of the Eagle/Raven dancers in 1985 before creating her own dance troupe in 1986 named the Yun Shu Kaa dancers. In 1995, she established the youth dance group, Lda Kut Naaz Sati Yatx'i (translating as "All Nations Children" in the Tlingit language) in Juneau, AK.

Works In 2020, a woven cedar mask created by Soboleff and titled Just Ovoid It was featured in an exhibition by First American Art Magazine and was chosen in April of that year to be featured in the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. For the latter exhibit, the work was renamed to the Yellow Cedar Face Mask and was described as being made with yellow cedar forming the primary splints of the mask and braided sinew acting as the external ties holding the splints together. The award recognizes individuals who have furthered Alaska Native languages and arts. Her cedar mask was featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum Renwick Gallery's 50th anniversary exhibition, This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World (2022–23) in Washington, DC. In April 2019, she was given the President's Everyday Hero Award from the Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.

Collections Smithsonian American Art Museum: Yellow Cedar Face Mask National Museum of the American Indian: Face Mask