Starlit Trails
Roxy Wright Jewelry Bio
Roxy was born in Fairbanks in 1950. She is of Athabaskan heritage from her father, Gareth Wright, and Aleut/Yupik from her mother, Vera Carter Strack. Roxy is best known in Alaska as a champion open class sprint dog musher. Roxy won the state’s premier sprint races, the Fairbanks Open North American and the Anchorage World Championship Fur Rendezvous each four times. She was the first women to have won either of them. Her latest win was in 2017 in a storybook come back after a twenty-year retirement from racing, making her the oldest person to have won either race at the age of 66. Roxy practiced her artistry throughout her life sewing traditional fur clothing for her family. In 2015 Roxy took a metal smithing class with her daughter, Tammy Holland. They both fell in love with it and after two years of classes at UAF, they have a studio at home that they share and work out of.
Roxy’s Artist Statement
Our family lives a subsistence style life, supplementing our needs with fishing, hunting and
gathering. We try to make use of everything we gather off the land. I try to incorporate many
local materials in my jewelry…. i.e. moose antler, bone, hoofs; fish vertebrae; river rocks;
baleen; shells; wolf claws. Each piece is individually made, and many share a part of our
Alaskan heritage.