The Nevada State Museum has a whole room filled with beautiful artwork with different meanings. After my recent visit, this topic stuck out to me the most and I wanted to dive deeper into it.
The artwork created by members of the Great Basin Native Artists (GBNA) collective is deeply tied to identity, history, and place. Many of these pieces of art are from Nevada, California, Southern Oregon, Southern Idaho, and Utah. Many pieces, like intricate basketry and beadwork, carry patterns and techniques passed down through generations.
The Great Basin is a unique, high-desert landscape. The art often reflects the plants, animals, and natural elements specific to this region, showing how environment shapes culture. Contemporary paintings, illustrations, and multimedia installations address the complexities of modern Indigenous life, historical trauma, and the survival of their cultures.
As founder Melissa Melero-Moose said, “Indian people, even though so much of the population was wiped out, we never stopped creating.” The GBNA represents Indigenous groups across the Great Basin including Paiute, Shoshone, Washoe, Maidu, and Pomo peoples. It includes both historical masters and modern creators, such as:
- Melissa Melero-Moose: Mixed media visual artist, curator, and writer who co-founded GBNA in 2014
- Linda Eben-Jones: Beadwork, artist, and doll maker
- Ben Aleck: Painter and educator whose 30-year survey was shown at the Nevada Museum of Art
- Jack Malotte: Visual artist whose work highlights Great Basin landscapes and environmental/political issues
- Judith Lowry: Painter whose work is in the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institution
- Lucy Parker Telles: Master basket maker
- Carrie Bethel: Basket weaver
- and more.
This relates to culture by the direct reflection of living and breathing culture. By showing traditional pieces like doll-making, language/oral history, and basket weaving alongside modern comic book art and digital design, GBNA proves Great Basin culture is adaptive and continuous.
The artwork serves as a visual map of the Great Basin tribes. It proudly shows specific tribal affiliations like Fallon Paiute-Shoshone, Moapa Southern Paiute, and Yerington Paiute, teaching the public about distinct cultures within the region. GBNA has impacted both the Native artistic community and the public. GBNA addresses the “invisibility of Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin in the Native American art world.” It put Great Basin artists on the national and international map.
Since co-founding GBNA in 2014, Melero-Moose and the collective have realized their mission through partnering with the Nevada Museum of Art. Melero-Moose received a fellowship in 2018 to create a directory and archive of Great Basin Native artists. This creates a permanent academic record, so artists’ legacies aren’t erased.
GBNA partnered with Stewart Indian School Cultural Center and Museum to maintain a changing gallery featuring regional Indigenous artists, moving from digital to formal museum spaces. GBNA serves as a permanent educational tool for schools, researchers, and the public to learn accurate history directly from Indigenous voices.
Thank you, Nevada State Museum, for having me and my journalism classmates be a part of this opportunity. I loved seeing the Nevada culture that I didn’t even know about, and look forward to learning more about these cultures.
Related Links
Great Basin Native Artists (GBNA)
Great Basin Native Artists Gallery (Stewart Indian School)
School Against Culture: Stewart Indian School (Sun Valley Insider)
Melissa Melero-Moose (Wikipedia)
Photo credit: Main photo from the Great Basin Native Artists exhibit at the Nevada State Museum. Photo courtesy of Daisy Macias Torres.
