Yani is an active Native artist of Rhode Island. She has been an apprentice and artisan of North Eastern Quillwork and Beadwork for the past 3-6 years. As a child, Yolanda watched her mother religiously create contemporary and traditional Native art. While learning at her side, she observed how that body of work touched people’s lives throughout the Native community. It wasn’t until her late 20s that she decided to put her skills at play. Through recognizing and reflecting on the struggles of identity being a Native woman in today’s America, Yolanda began expressing herself through two art forms of choice: traditional pre-contact quillwork and contemporary beadwork. Most of her work is a mixture of the two, connecting both the past and the present. Over the past 6 years her work has been sold, demonstrated, taught and exhibited at numerous Native cultural events throughout New England. She was recently a featured artist in the Warwick Museums “Love Medicine” exhibit in February, and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts’s “Art Unifies Communities” exhibit and the “Native American” exhibit of 2014.

Check out her interview here:

https://www.as220.org/artist-in-residence-yani-smiths-native-quillwork/