RYAN! Feddersen: Coyote Now
Audio Guide
Introduction
Audio Recording
RYAN! Feddersen: Coyote Now
RYAN! Feddersen creates installations and public artworks that invite people to actively participate while considering their relationship to the environment, technology, society, and culture. Coyote Now engages Plateau lore and storytelling to imagine the trickster, Coyote, as an actor in contemporary events. Before there were two-legged people (humans) on earth, Coyote was busy roaming the plateau, playing both Trickster and Hero, and preparing the world for change. Because Coyote’s work was important, but his mischief would often backfire on him, Coyote was given the gift of immortal life. Following a disaster, if a piece of Coyote remained—even a single scrap of fur, a bone, or a whisker—Coyote could be revived to live on.
By casting Coyote’s bones in crayon, Feddersen establishes creativity as the symbolic way of restoring Coyote so that his work can continue today. In her illustrated, modern-day epic, the artist’s Coyote adventures become metaphors to help interpret our world and the impacts of our individual actions on society. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, the artwork’s narrative transforms as people add their own colors.
RYAN! Feddersen is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, from the Okanogan and Arrow Lakes bands, and is of mixed European descent.
Organized by the Boise Art Museum
Sponsored by the Steiner Family Foundation
With additional support provided by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, the state-based affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
RYAN! Feddersen, Coyote Now: Bones
Audio Recording
RYAN! Feddersen
(b. 1984, Wenatchee, WA)
Coyote Now: Bones, 2016
Ink on board paper and hand-cast crayons
Presented as a set of eight, colorful crayons, cast as realistic replicas of Coyote bones, the artwork combines the recognizable tools of creativity with Plateau lore. Sweatlodge gave his cousin, the Fox, the ability to revive Coyote if even a shred of bone or fur remained. These hand-cast crayon bones symbolically become these remains, offering the opportunity to bring Coyote back to life through our creative labors.
Museum attendants will be available to provide crayons for participation during the following times:
Fridays & Saturdays | 1:30 – 4:30 p.m.
The artist’s hand-made crayon sets are available for purchase in the BAM Store.
RYAN! Feddersen, Coyote Now, 2024
Audio Recording
RYAN! Feddersen
(b. 1984, Wenatchee, WA)
Coyote Now, 2024
Pigment print on PhotoTex and hand-cast crayon
How to Participate
The hand-cast, Coyote-bone crayons are part of the artwork created by RYAN! Feddersen.
Please use one crayon at a time to add your color to the artwork. Then return the crayon to the Museum attendant.
Museum attendants will be available to provide crayons for participation during the following times:
Fridays & Saturdays | 1:30 – 4:30 p.m.
RYAN! Feddersen, Little Turns, 2023
Audio Recording
Little Turns
Inspiration is all around you. How would you reflect your environment?
Gently rotate the cylinders to create an image or pattern that expresses how you see the world around you.
RYAN! Feddersen
(b. 1984, Wenatchee, WA)
Little Turns, 2023
Wood, paint, cans, vinyl, and steel rod
Collection of the Artist
RYAN! Feddersen created this artwork in collaboration with the High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon, as a pattern-making apparatus that references the pixelated nature of Plateau twining and bead work.
“I hope that the exercise inspires gratitude and emphasizes our interconnectedness.”
– RYAN!
RYAN! Feddersen, Remains series
Audio Recording
Ryan Feddersen: Remains
Part of the Remains series created during an artist residency at the Tacoma Museum of Glass, these glass vessels are based on traditional Plateau (Interior Salish) woven burden baskets. Burden baskets were historically used to transport items and store goods. They continue to be made and used today. Melded with imagery that can be seen across RYAN! Feddersen’s artistic media, together the vessels create a vibrant vignette of elements that are repeated within her themes, including Coyote Now, Disconnected Towers, Bison Stack, and Manifest Signs. We see Coyote’s spirit hovering over his bones, waiting to be restored. Disconnected towers loom over neighborhoods as beacons that predict gentrification. Cranes place the final bison skull on a heap, linking the slaughter of the bison and removal of Indigenous communities from their lands with current, rapid redevelopment that continues to displace animals and people. While seemingly playful in their bright colors and iconographic imagery, the artworks reflect troubling stories that demand our attention and actions toward a more compassionate and connected world with the highest hopes for our shared humanity.
About the Artist (Rack Card)
RYAN! Elizabeth Feddersen specializes in creating compelling, site-specific installations and public artworks which invite people to consider our relationships to history, culture, the land, and our non-human-kin. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Cornish College of the Arts in 2009, and is now based in Tacoma, Washington. Feddersen grew up in Wenatchee and is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, from the Okanogan and Arrow Lakes bands, and of mixed European descent. Her practice focuses on creative problem solving to address social issues through visual allegories that provide opportunities for exploration, introspection, and epiphany. She investigates creative strategies to activate engagement with interactive materials, community sourced content, social practice, fun and humor. These approaches enable her work to start conversations about a broad spectrum of subjects and promote collective learning. Feddersen has created large-scale, site-specific artworks and interactive installations throughout North America and has a growing body of permanent artworks in the public realm.
Glass vessels:
RYAN! Feddersen
(b. 1984, Wenatchee, WA)
Ghost Coyote, 2019
Glass
Collection of the Artist
RYAN! Feddersen
(b. 1984, Wenatchee, WA)
Coyote Bones, 2019
Glass
Collection of the Artist
RYAN! Feddersen
(b. 1984, Wenatchee, WA)
Disconnected Towers, 2019
Glass
Collection of the Artist
RYAN! Feddersen
(b. 1984, Wenatchee, WA)
Oh Shit*, 2019
Glass
Collection of the Artist
RYAN! Feddersen
(b. 1984, Wenatchee, WA)
Bison Stack Crane, 2019
Glass
Collection of the Artist
RYAN! Feddersen
(b. 1984, Wenatchee, WA)
Bison and Coyote, 2019
Glass
Collection of the Artist
RYAN! Feddersen
(b. 1984, Wenatchee, WA)
Vibrant Bison, 2019
Glass
Collection of the Artist
RYAN! Feddersen
(b. 1984, Wenatchee, WA)
Two Birds Both Dead, 2019
Glass
Collection of the Artist
RYAN! Feddersen
(b. 1984, Wenatchee, WA)
Crane, 2019
Glass
Collection of the Artist
