Carola Jones

First Nations

Contenta Creek Homeland

NC Tuscara, Fl Seminole, SC Geechee

Carola Jones is a knowledge keeper of historical traditional clay and textile practices for indigenous Southeastern Woodlands people. Carola is also an academically trained studio artist and art historian. She is a multi-generational natural dye practitioner, finger weaver, garment maker and quilter. As a founding member of the international Seed to Runway Project she teaches people to grow and harvest local plants and flowers for color and medicine as a way of self-healing by reconnecting with ancestral land practices and to develop entrepreneurial skills.

In her studio practice, Carola creates natural colors from plants, roots, flowers, and nuts. She combines machine & hand stitching, hand embroidery, mixed aquatic media, and sometimes weaving to construct traditional blankets, modern quilts, one-of-a-kind wearables, and home goods. Carola is a ceramic artist, Pow Wow dancer, working traveler, writer, bundle binder, and storyteller who was born in Wilson at Mercy Hospital, and is a third-generation graduate of Darden High School. Carola’s blood ties represent many historical townships of the Tuscarora Confederacy, and her ancestors are connected with historical events on the Outer Banks, Pamlico Sound, Fort Neyuher:uke, and Indian Woods.

Carola is a creator of color, who loves drawing, with a passion for painting, who makes modern art quilts inspired by Seminole patchwork and geometry. Her art and design practices are about exploring sacred places on land where her ancestors lived, blood memory, and indigenous ways of knowing transferred through stories while creating clay and textiles.

Currently, Carola is a volunteer creative provider at Y-GIG, a local after school program for middle schoolers, a part-time small business social media consultant, and a full-time studio and international teaching artist. She has given workshops and had her work exhibited in 27 countries, and across the US. Her recent art residencies include SITE/ation at The University of British Columbia, Okanagan, Indigenous Art Intensive last summer, and Indigo as Medicine & Fashion at Material Institute in New Orleans this Spring and Summer.

Instagram: @fiberartbycarola