Generational Love: Opening Reception

Generational Love: The Must-See Indigenous Art Show Seattle’s Been Waiting For.
Copper Canoe Woman’s debut solo exhibition at Tidelands transforms Indigenous adornment, from button blankets to runway couture, into fine art.

This month, Seattle audiences have the rare opportunity to witness the debut solo exhibition of one of the most influential Indigenous designers in the Pacific Northwest: Vina Brown (ƛ̓áqvas gḷ́w̓aqs), also known by her spirit name, Copper Canoe Woman.
If you’ve been to a canoe landing, a powwow, or a music festival in Indian Country, you’ve likely seen her work—those iconic salmon ghost earrings, or bold acrylic ovoids in Northwest Coast formline—worn by Indigenous women because they are giving fiercely fabulous. Brown’s designs are instantly recognizable, but Generational Love marks a new chapter: her evolution from wearable adornment to large-scale installation and fine art presentation.

The exhibition features traditional button blankets, meticulously crafted in the style passed down through her Haíłzaqv (Bella Bella) and Nuučaan̓uɫ (Nootka) lineage, alongside eight striking looks from her runway collection—bringing high fashion into dialogue with ancestral forms. There are laser-cut acrylic salmon swimming across the walls, wearable ovoid dresses, and framed cedar mats holding statement earrings as treasured art objects. It’s a true representation of taking traditional teachings and coastal artwork, and making them modern—futuristic even.

Brown is a weaver, beader, cultural leader, PhD student, and entrepreneur whose work has been featured on runways from New York Fashion Week to the Santa Fe Indian Art Market. For her, adornment is not just fashion—it is cultural memory, resistance, and ancestral elegance passed down through matrilineal lines.

“Generational Love is a reflection on what has been passed down, and what has been stolen, from Indigenous women artists… a love letter to those who came before, and a reclaiming of what they always deserved,” says Brown.

Many of the works in this exhibition are collaborative, created with her partner, Michael Schjang Jr. (Hopi), whose skill in design, painting, regalia making, and laser cutting shapes the precision and beauty of their shared creations.

Why now? Seattle is in the midst of a reckoning with whose stories are seen and celebrated in its cultural spaces. Generational Love brings Indigenous women’s artistry, often relegated to the margins, into the center—on its own terms. It’s a show about reclamation, lineage, and the future of Native design, offering a visually arresting and emotionally resonant experience for audiences of all backgrounds.