• Materials: Yellow Gold and Silver
• Artists: Carrie Matilpi
• Totem Symbols: Thunderbird
• Styles: Canadian First Nations
• Categories: Earrings

Thunderbird

The Thunderbird represents protection, power, and strength. He is considered the strongest of the totem animals, possessing supernatural power and credited with creating storms. When he blinks, lighting comes out of his eyes, and when he flaps his wings, thunder roars. He hunts and eats whales by using the two lightning snakes kept under his wings.

Carrie Matilpi

Carrie was born in 1976, her tribes are Kwakiutl, Carrier and Cree. She started silver work in 1994 in an apprenticeship under her father Charles Harper who had been apprenticed under great Lloyd Wadhams in the mid 1970’s. The other major influences of Carrie’s native designs are from her uncles, they are Douglas and Glen Harper, Dennis and George Matilpi, all of them are well known for their wood carvings and jewelry engraving.

Carrie creates intricate and delicate pieces, mainly in silver, drawing inspiration from the traditional animals of her nations.