An Evening with Jeremy Frey

Jeremy Frey is one of the foremost Passamaquoddy craftspeople of his generation. A descendant of a long line of Indigenous weavers, Frey learned traditional Wabanaki methods from his mother and by apprenticing at the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance. Woven from natural materials that the artist himself forages, such as sweetgrass and wood from black ash trees, Frey’s vessels are characterized by subtle forms, delicately layered colors, and elaborate weaves. Building on and experimenting with the material histories of Wabanaki basketry, his work is also in dialogue with contemporary sculpture’s emphasis on materiality, form, and variation within repetition. To create his basket relief prints, Frey has developed a novel form of flat weaving that can be run repeatedly through a printing press, preserving and sharing his techniques without impacting the stock of his rare materials. He lives in Maine.

Frey was the recipient of the 2025 MacArthur Fellowship, and is the first two-time winner of Best of Show at the Heard Museum Indian Guild Fair and Market in Phoenix, Arizona. 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.

Cosponsored by the Boston College Art, Art History, and Film Department.

All Lowell Humanities Series lectures are free and open to the public. Registration via Eventbrite is required for in-person attendance.

The Lowell Humanities Series is sponsored by the Lowell Institute, Boston College's Institute for the Liberal Arts, and the Provost's Office.