Artist Biography

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

Selected Exhibitions and Honors

Solo Exhibitions

2010 Reclaiming Cultural Ownership—Challenging Indian Stereotypes, Western Carolina University Fine Arts Museum, Cullowhee, NC

2004 Earth Renewal, Earth Return, Truman State University, Kirksville, MO

2002 Earth Renewal, Native Indian/Inuit Photographers’ Association (NIIPA) Gallery, Ontario, Canada

All My Relations, Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Cherokee, NC

2000 Reclaiming Cultural Ownership; Challenging Indian Stereotypes, Native Indian/Inuit Photographers’ Association (NIIPA) Gallery, Ontario, Canada

1999 Shan Goshorn, Truman State University, Kirksville, MO

1995 Honest Injun: Unlearning Indian Stereotypes, Native Indian/Inuit Photographers’ Association (NIIPA) Gallery, Ontario, Canada

Walks in Two Worlds, Northeast Missouri State University, Kirksville, MO

1994 Always Within the Sound of the Drum, Walters Art Gallery, Tulsa, OK

1992 Receiving Star Gift: The Work of Shan Goshorn, Ursuline College, Pepper Pike, OH

1991 Shan Goshorn, Cherokee Heritage Museum and Gallery, Cherokee, NC

Taken to the Water, Native Indian/Inuit Photographer’s Association (NIIPA) Gallery, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada 1989 Birth & Rebirth, Ancestors & Descendants, Plains Indians & Pioneers Museum, Woodward, OK

1988 Embracing the Hoop, Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, NM

Honoring the Sacred Wheel, Pictures Gallery, Tulsa Photo Collective, Tulsa, OK

Song of Honor, International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum, Oklahoma City, OK

1987 Coming into Power, Center for Exploratory Photographic Application Gallery, Buffalo, NY

Moontime: The Cycles of Life, Southern Plains Indian Museum, Anadarko, OK

1980 Focals, Fetishes and Rituals, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA

Merging Diversities, Indian Arts and Crafts Board, Cherokee, NC

Group Exhibitions

2018 Bring Her Home, All My Relations Arts, Minneapolis, MN

The Condor and the Eagle, Elisabeth Jones Art Center, Portland, OR

2017 Beyond Pocahantas. We Are Native Women, Rainmaker Gallery, Bristol, England

Rooted Revived, Reinvented: Basketry in America, National Basketry Organization, University of Missouri Museum of Art and Archaeology, Columbia, MO (traveling exhibition)

Wah.Shka, Isola della Certosa, 57th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy

Without Boundaries: Visual Conversations, Anchorage Museum and IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, NM (traveling exhibition)

2016 From the Belly of Our Being; Art by and about Native Creation, Museum of Art, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK Woven: The Art of Contemporary Native Basketry, Archer Gallery, Clark College, Vancouver, WA

2015 INTERTWINED. Stories of Splintered Pasts: Shan Goshorn & Sarah Sense, Arts & Humanities Council, Tulsa, OK

Return from Exile, Lyndon House Arts Center, Athens, GA (traveling exhibition)

SWAIA Indian Market, Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, Santa Fe, NM

Woven Together: Celebrating Grandmother Spider Woman in Contemporary Native Art, Orenburg Museum, Orenburg, Russia

2014 Beautiful Games: American Indian Sport and Art, Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ

Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

Native Art Now—Contemporary Indigenous Art, Nordamerika Native Museum, Zurich, Switzerland

Re-Riding History: From the Southern Plains to the Matanzas Bay, Crisp-Ellert Art Museum, Flagler College, St. Augustine, FL (traveling exhibition)

SWAIA Indian Market, Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, Santa Fe, NM

Twisted Path III: Questions of Balance, Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, ME

We Hold These Truths, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, NM

2013 Art from Indian Territory: Contemporary Native Art from Oklahoma, All My Relations Gallery, Minneapolis, MN

Fiberworks, 108 Contemporary, Tulsa, OK Indian Fair & Market, Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ

RED 2013: Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship, Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN

SWAIA Indian Market, Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, Santa Fe, NM

Trail of Tears, Cherokee Heritage Center, Tahlequah, OK