While these projects and the accompanying lectures I presented about stereotypes and racism expressed my Native point of view, they weren’t as successful in educating and encouraging dialogue as I’d hoped. Although I did find the occasional enlightened individual, the more common response by an audience was to retreat as soon as possible or, more unpleasantly, to engage in hostile finger-pointing. Fortunately, I had an idea in 2008 about creating a work that addressed sovereignty, and decided that a traditional single-weave basket shape would be an interesting way to present the friction between state and tribal governments. This paper basket was met with surprise and interest, which encouraged me to pursue this technique and tackle the more difficult double-weave. A double-weave basket is very tricky to produce as it starts on the interior bottom and is woven up the sides to the desired height. The splints are turned and woven back down the sides and finished on the bottom, with no obvious indication of beginning or end. I mention here that the usual way a Native person learns a traditional craft is by the repeated observation of someone creating these works from start to finish, usually a family member, thus passing tricks of the trade from one generation to another. Since I no longer live in North Carolina, but in Oklahoma, and no one in my family weaves baskets, I taught myself by carefully examining a finished basket. My first double-weave—Sealed Fate (2001)—took me over a year to figure out. When I showed it to friends at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, they identified me as the fourteenth living Eastern Cherokee who had mastered this technique. My next basket—Educational Genocide: The Legacy of the Carlisle Indian Boarding School (2011)—was a lidded double-weave, created with a photograph woven into it, which won Best of Show at the Red Earth Indian Art Festival. To date, I have woven over 230 baskets. I have received numerous fellowships, including the United States Artists Distinguished Fellowship in Traditional Arts (2015), the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Traditional Arts Fellowship (2014), the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship (2013), the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2013), and the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts Discovery Fellowship (2013). These grants enabled me to continue the research I started at the Smithsonian Institution, studying historical baskets, documents, letters, and treaties that I use as sources of inspiration to create my work. My intention is to present historical and contemporary issues that continue to be relevant to Indian people today, to a world that still relies on Hollywood as a reliable informant about Indian life. It was a thrilling accident to discover that the vessel shapes of baskets are a nonthreatening vehicle to educate audiences. But even more exciting, I am observing viewers literally leaning into my work, eager to learn more about the history of this country’s First People, which can lead to the next wonderful step of engaging in honest dialogue about the issues that still plague Indian people today. America has believed a one-sided history for too long. Acknowledging and addressing these past atrocities is movement toward true racial healing, which has always been the goal of my work as an artist. Shan Goshorn
111
