Meet artist Kelly Church, an Ottawa/Pottawatomi black ash basket maker, fiber artist, educator, activist, and culture keeper. A member of the Gun Lake Band in Michigan and descendent of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Ojibwe, she comes from an unbroken line of black ash basket makers and from the largest black ash weaving family in the Great Lakes region. 

Through her distinctive artwork and in workshops led across the country, Church advocates for the survival of Indigenous cultural traditions and teaches about the black ash tree. The tree is central to the traditions of many Native American and First Nations tribes and critically endangered by the invasive Emerald Ash Borer beetle.

She has been named a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow, has earned a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation’s National Artist Fellowship, and has been a four-time Artist Leadership Program participant with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Her black ash piece Every Dawn is a New Day, a new work acquired by the KIA in 2024, is on view in the Legendary Voices exhibition.