Meet Amanda Bigelow

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amanda Bigelow a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Amanda, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I get my resilience from a long blood line of incredibly strong women. Alaska Native Yup’ik woman who not only have endured the elements of Alaska remote villages but also survived all kinds of generational trauma. Because they survived is why I am here today and why I am as resilient as I am.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I am Amanda, I am Alaskan Native Yup’ik and an artist / business owner of abYupik LLC. I range in a variety of mediums of art from drawing, painting, jewelry making, and I mostly focus on bead work. My main goal is to bring traditional style Indigenous art to the modern spot light.
I am working on getting my name and brand out there and trying to work any kind of vending events. I will be launching a new Indigenous Peoples line of beaded earrings in the new year of 2026

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

My skills are all self taught, I did not have the privilege of learning my craft from my late grandmother and mother, but I taught myself to help honor them. Funny enough social media is where I have taught myself the skills of beading and some of my Native language. To me it is so important to learn traditional teachings even if our family mentors are no longer here to teach us, espcially as an Indigenous person. Because at one point in history it was illegal to practice our culture.
My advice to any reconnecting Indigenous person is keep learning. Keep trying to find a community of people who can share the teachings and knowledge of our ancestors.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I am always looking for other artists, even more so Indigenous artist to collaborate with. I would love to find a local Native artist who is willing to come up with an earring collection or a Native model to help show case my jewelry.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: abYupik
• Facebook: abYupik
• Other: my email for custom orders or any other questions is [email protected]