Forest Gallery

Welcome to our Forest Gallery, this small green kiosk has transformed an old no-dumping sign into a space to showcase Indigenous art.

Rachel Singletary-Kopel (Tlingit)

maps (not to scale), 2025

I transformed an old linen dress and some well loved flannel sheets with stitches and thread to create this quilted panel. I layered and simplified various maps to create a design inspired by the history and the hope filled, neon bright, future of the yəhaw̓ property.

About the Artist

As an artist and archivist Rachel Singletary Kopel strives to give presence and form to memories and to gain new understanding through the transformative act of art making. Her work is informed by her multi-cultural heritage, the grief and resilience of her ancestors and her desire to heal intergenerational trauma. Her pieces manipulate and make use of her personal collections, gathered over a lifetime of observing nature, writing poetry, and extracting beautiful objects from the waste stream of material culture. In her hands these materials, objects and collections gather new meaning through their combinations and arrangements. Her techniques are chosen from a palette that includes: hand sewing, design, crochet, beadwork, embroidery, book arts, weaving, poetry, illustration and assemblage. Kopel works in two or three dimensions and has created both permanent objects and temporary installations. Each piece develops organically, often incorporating the results of earlier experimental investigation. She seeks to evoke the spiral nature of healing and the feeling of a safe, cozy burrow where the soul can find solace and be cocooned while gathering the strength for transformation. Kopel is a Seattle native with an education in Graphic Design and Book Arts (BFA, University of the Arts 2006) as well as in Library and Information Science with an Archival focus (MLIS University of Washington 2016). When not working as an archivist she can be found in her studio experimenting with whatever seed pods she grew in the garden that year and all the multicolored dryer lint she has accumulated.