Jennifer Angaiak Wood

Jennifer Angaiak Wood is Yup’ik, Irish, and Italian. Her parents are Andy and Marie Angaiak of Fairbanks, AK, and her grandparents are Mike and Susie Angaiak of Tununak, AK, and Kip and Pat Morey of Menlo Park, CA. Jennifer was born and raised in Fairbanks, AK. The Yup’ik side of her family is from Tununak, AK, and she spent summers there with her family when she was growing up. The experiences she had there greatly inform her artistic expression, and her main focus is on carving masks from that region. The designs she uses are inspired by ancestral artworks, but incorporate modern materials and concepts to emphasize that the Yupiit, as well as all Indigenous people, are a contemporary culture, not just a historic one. Her first carving teacher was Ron Manook, her high school Alaska Native Arts teacher. He passed away in 1999, so she has been mostly self-taught since then, though she has been able to work with some artists in the Seattle area since moving there in 2015, and they have shown her how to use adzes and traditional bent knives. Jennifer now lives in Indianola, WA, with her husband and two kids, and works out of her home studio.

Website: yupikjen.com
Instagram: @yupikjen