Celeste Worl was born in 1957 in Southeast Alaska. Being Tlingit from the Northwest Coast, she was surrounded by a family of totem pole carvers, basket weavers and beaders. Growing up as a part of a tribe, she often went fishing and collected berries, clams and gum boots with her relatives.

She learned how to bead and gather from her grandmother, who also taught her the smell of bears and how to keep the fire going in the smoke house. Celeste's mother, Rosita Worl, vigorously impressed upon Celeste the traditional ways of Tlingit culture and tribal life. Under her mother's guidance, she began to work for the Alaska State Museum giving lectures to schools throughout Alaska on Alaska Native art, history and culture.

The passage of the Alaska Land Claims Settlement Act in 1971 had a tremendous impact on all of Alaska's Native peoples. They were allotted $1 billion and 44 million acres, which remained untaxed for 20 years in order to learn how to transition into the western economic system. Twelve regional profit corporations were set up and Native people became shareholders in the new corporations. This involved a transition from tribal Natives to corporate Natives and changed the basic fabric of community and cultural life.

In 1980, Celeste and her family founded the Alaska Native Magazine (ANM). The magazine served as an educational, political and informational medium as well as reintroduced old ways of life and art into the Native struggle for survival in a new system. Celeste worked as the magazine's graphic artist, art director and its publisher. The magazine won awards for advertising and editorial stories and involved Celeste in a world of visual and artistic communication in which old and new were brought together.

Celeste's dream of attending the Institute of American Indian Art (IAIA) finally came to be realized in 1997 when she enrolled in IAIA's two-dimensional art program. This lifelong dream resonated with her continuing desire to integrate and express her contemporary views with her traditional values and experiences through painting.

She has shown her work at the IAIA museum where one of her pieces remains in the museum's permanent collection. Celeste graduated from IAIA in 2001 and presently continues to explore the diversity of Native images and artistic styles through her unique vision in her art.

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