Jeremy Frey

2024 Stepping Stone Grantee

Jeremy Frey (b. 1978, Passamaquoddy Indian Township Reservation, Maine) is one of the foremost Passamaquoddy craftspeople of his generation. Frey, a descendant of a long line of Native weavers, learned traditional Wabanaki weaving techniques from his mother and by apprenticing at the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance. Working with customary materials such as brown ash and sweetgrass, Frey introduces new materials, unique forms, and fine weaves while maintaining a strong connection to the traditional practice. His first institutional solo exhibition, Jeremy Frey: Woven, which debuted at the Portland Museum of Art, Maine, is on view at the Art Institute of Chicago through February 2025. In June 2025, Woven will travel to the Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut (2023). Frey won Best of Show at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 2011, marking the first time a basketmaker achieved this honor in the market’s ninety-year history. That same year, Frey won Best of Show and at the Heard Museum Indian Guild Fair and Market in Phoenix, Arizona, which he would repeat in 2015, making him the first artist ever to do so. Frey’s work is held in the public collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Portland Museum of Art, Maine; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; University of Delaware Special Collections & Museums; and Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, among others.