Jeremy Frey

About Jeremy's Work

Jeremy Frey is an artist balancing tradition with innovation in technically precise and visually stunning woven artworks. Frey is descended from a long line of Wabanaki basket makers, and his art is imbued with the value systems, environmental stewardship, and history of traditional Wabanaki ash and sweetgrass basketry. Through experimentation with color, form, and materials, he forges a singular aesthetic that blurs the boundaries between craft, design, and contemporary art. 

Frey executes every step in his basketmaking process, from foraging and preparing all raw materials (brown ash wood, sweetgrass, and porcupine quills) according to traditional sustainable practices, to making custom forms (or molds), dying wood strips, and weaving and braiding intricate patterns. With masterful technique, Frey pushes the limits of what is possible when working with pounded brown ash. He creates very fine and precise woven textures using ash strands as thin as one thirty-second of an inch. His double-walled baskets have distinct inner and outer layers; for example, the exterior of Navigating Tradition (2023) is undyed ash, while the interior reveals a complex pattern of red and purple columns and horizontal stripes. This technical ingenuity extends to the elegant shapes and large scale of Frey’s pieces. One of his largest works, Nearly Monochrome (2022), stands at over 31 inches tall and features a rare example of braided ash around the neck—a use of ash not seen in historical baskets. With vase-shaped baskets such as Aura (2023), Frey creates a graceful, curved sculptural form. Aura also showcases Frey’s dynamic use of color: he intensifies the traditional Wabanaki porcupine pattern—which features regularly spaced, triangular protrusions, known as points—through dyed ash strips. The red points against a turquoise background create the effect of a vibrating halo around the piece. Similarly, Frey creates an iridescent glow with a combination of two shades of purple in the points of Dawnland (2022). Frey has also introduced novel embellishments to his baskets, most notably quillwork using dyed porcupine quills to embroider images of animals and landscapes.

Recently, Frey has forayed into two-dimensional pieces, such as large-scale, woven wall hangings and embossed relief prints of woven works. This new direction reflects his continual invention and his efforts to conserve ash trees endangered by the invasive emerald ash borer. Frey carries forward and expands upon generations of Wabanaki craft, and his imagination is inspiring young Indigenous artists and the fine arts world.