Beadwork — Sophia Anderson

What began as me trying to somatically recover the memories of my chicha (grandmother), became creating a patchwork of my own.

The following works are from a series I began at the end of 2023, when I moved back to the reservation where I grew up. They are glimpses of significant moments I have experienced since being back on my native land. From the meteor shower that rained across the sky the first night I slept in my new (old) home, to the pattern of the tide-drenched sand on my first walk back on the beach, each of these moments is concentrated down to a 1 1/2” square. This culminated at a solo show, “keep-sake” I had at SOIL Artist-Run Gallery in Seattle at the end of 2024, and the work has continued from there as I re-experience and explore this place I know so well.

Shoalwater Bay, seed beads on felt, 6.5”x8”, 2024

Shoalwater Bay is a name given by a settler to these ancestral lands inhabited by indigenous peoples for the last 2000 years. This piece is the largest beadwork I have attempted so far, and took over 100 hours to complete. It depicts what is probably the most familiar view I have of these lands, on the beach I grew up walking on nearly every day. If you are interested in learning more about our our tribe’s history and origins, here is a link to our tribe’s website.

gathering sweetgrass on a summer day, seed beads on felt, 3”x5”, 2024

Our tribe is coastal and basketry is integral to our people- as a tribe we have been focusing on revitalizing our traditional arts, and this piece is based on my first time as an adult gathering sweetgrass for a basket on our ancestral lands.

washaway after a winter storm, seed beads on felt, 3”x5”, 2023

Washaway beach is named for its rapid erosion, partially due to early dredging & dams built on the Columbia. Almost two miles of coastline has been eroded and a whole town has been washed away, including a cemetery, school and lighthouse. If you are interested in learning more, here is an article published in the Seattle Times in 2020. There is a huge community effort to stop the erosion, working together until the name Washaway No More.

Bonneville Dam, seed beads on felt, 3”x5”, 2025

The Bonneville Dam was the first federal lock and dam on the Columbia and Snake rivers, built in the 1930’s, and it’s now registered as a historic landmark. Prior to the construction of the dam and colonization of the area, the tribes native to this water had flourishing economies and culture centered around the salmon that inhabited the river. The construction of these dams effectively destroyed ancient indigenous fishing sites and nearly made these prosperous salmon runs extinct.

The US Government as of 2024 has finally acknowledged the devastation to the indigenous people of the Columbia and Snake Rivers that the construction of this and other dams caused. Shoalwater Bay is located 28 miles north of the mouth of the Columbia River, where Washaway Beach has had over a mile of coastline erode away in the last century. A possible cause of this rapid erosion is the dams, just like Bonneville, that manipulated the natural flow of water, and created errant and destructive currents that ate away the land with a ferocious appetite.

chicha, seed beads on felt, 3”x5”, 2021

My chicha (grandmother) was a master bead-worker. She was a perfectionist, and my dad remembers her unravelling days of her work just to correct a single irregular bead. I started beading because I wanted to understand her better, to reconnect to my heritage while living off reservation. It has been a meditation, a life line, and a past-time.