- On this edition of "Arteffects," the intricate bead work of Native American regalia.

- [Teresa] So I'm coming up with bead work designs.

I often first start with the essence of the piece.

- [Beth] Pyrography by Tia Flores.

- So you're putting beautiful images on there, but at the same time, you're able to tell a story and a meaning behind it.

- [Beth] Discover "Mahkwuhoo" meditation.

- [Brian] The basis of the meditation is community, family, and their engagement with the land that they're on.

- [Beth] And the impactful story of Jean LaMarr.

- [Jean] I hope when someone sees my work, they feel joy and feel the colors and hoe exciting the Indigenous life is.

- It's all ahead on this edition of "Arteffects."

(upbeat jazz music) - [Narrator] Funding for "Arteffects" is made possible by Sandy Raffealli with Bill Pearce Motors, Meg and Dillard Myers, Heidemarie Rochlin, in memory of Sue McDowell, and by the annual contributions of PBS Reno Members.

- Hello.

I'm Beth MacMillan and welcome to "Arteffects."

In this episode, we celebrate Native American Heritage Month with stories featuring several local artists who beautifully capture the spirit of the Native American people.

In our first segment, we meet Teresa Melendez of Reno who combines her own artistry with her ancestry through powwow regalia.

(bright guitar music) - My favorite form of Indigenous artwork is bead work.

I really enjoy beading.

I find it relaxing.

I enjoy thinking about the designs and the type of materials that I wanna use, the look that I wanna create.

I also really enjoy making bead work because it's functional artwork.

(Teresa laughing) Bead work is a form of traditional Native American artwork.

So anywhere around the country as you visit different tribal nations, you'll see different styles of bead work.

I've been making bead work since I was about 15.

And usually when I design bead work and I create bead work, it's for use for cultural events or ceremonies or Powwows.

So, I'm a Powwow dancer, I'm a fancy shawl dancer.

I like to dance jingle and traditional from time to time, too.

But my kids and I, we Powwow dance, and so a lot of the bead work that I make is for Powwow outfits or regalia.

So when I'm coming up with bead work designs, I often first start with the essence of the piece.

So I'm really thinking about the person that I'm designing for and then the use of the final product and the look that I wanna create.

I like to lay everything out on graph paper and then I'll translate that paper to material and I'll sew it down to the material so that I have a pattern to work with.

And then I just start beading.

Bead work is incredibly time-consuming.

I do look at these different beaded pieces, you know that each one of those beads was hand sewn on.

Different artists will have their own techniques.

And so I like to put on four beads and then go back through two.

Every single bead is touched by the artist at least once, but sometimes multiple times depending how they tack it down.

And so the larger pieces, they could have hundreds of hours of man time.

I would say one of my favorite parts about beading is watching the piece come together 'cause you have this vision, and a lot of times, your vision is pretty true to the final product, but sometimes it's not.

And so it's fun watching the piece come together, but actually seeing the colors come together and the designs come together, it's really exciting and it provides me a lot of motivation 'cause I'll be like, "Two more hours and I'd have this piece complete and I can finally see what it's gonna look like."

When I make bead work, I make it for really specific purposes.

So my husband and I got married about seven years ago.

I wore a traditional woodland outfit for our wedding and then my husband wore a traditional Payu outfit for the wedding.

And then our daughters, they wore some beaded pieces also.

My 14 year old, her name is Siyabi, which means wild rose.

And so you'll see in those pieces that there's an image of a rose.

And the Pasitiva, our little one, her name is wild iris, and so there's an iris beaded into her hair ties.

And then in my bandolier bag, there's several different flowers that are beaded in that.

There's a flower that represents me, my favorite flower, and then my husband's favorite flower.

And there's a hummingbird, which symbolizes love.

And then going up the straps are the flowers of our kids.

So Busceppi, his name is red earth.

I beaded a red star-like flower for him.

(bright guitar music) One of the pieces I brought was the medallion I made when I graduated with my Bachelor's degree.

I went to Michigan State University.

The medallion's in the shape of the Spartan S with a little sash across with the abbreviation SOC for sociology and then the year I graduated 'cause I graduated with a Bachelor's degree in sociology.

So it's common in Indigenous artwork to see things like that that are symbols that are very specific to the individual or specific to that ceremony.

All of my bead work that I create has a lot of symbolism.

It feels good to wear our traditional artwork because I know it comes from a special place, I know that there's a lot of meaning behind the pieces, but I also think it's important as Americans that we see the Indigenous people who live here and who've always lived here.

Here in Nevada, there are 27 federally recognized tribes.

That's a lot of tribes.

(Teresa chuckling) That's a lot of tribes.

Most states don't have 27 federally recognized tribes.

Sometimes when we think about Indigenous cultures and Indigenous arts, we think about them as history, something that's in the past or something that's not current.

There's all kinds of beautiful work that's being done by artists around the country where they're capitalizing on contemporary materials, themes.

It's beautiful to see art evolving, even Indigenous art 'cause what's Indigenous is also contemporary.

- Now let's explore the artwork of Tia Flores of Reno.

This fourth generations Nevadan draws inspiration from her heritage and her childhood.

Let's see how she uses gourds and pyrography to celebrate her experiences and those of the Aztec and Navajo peoples.

(upbeat country music) - My name is Tia Flores and I do paragraphic gourd sculptures or Calabasas sculptures.

Calabasa art, actually, it's a fancy name for gourd.

I use gourds as my canvas, and from then, I do wood burning on it, which is also known as pyrography.

Pyrography is an ancient art form of drawing or writing with fire.

And there are different types of hot tools that you can use to burn on a particular surface and because the hard shell gourd is very much like the surface of wood, it takes really, really well to wood burning or the pyrography.

The gourd is one of those natural organic units that's been found on nearly every continent around the world.

It's been used by every culture in the world.

And in fact, it predates pottery.

In some countries, it was used for ceremonial purposes.

That's what the Native Americans used it for.

I started working with gourds in the '90s, the late '90s.

I was going through sort of a transition in my life, a career transition, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and I also wanted to get in touch with my heritage.

The pieces that I create and design, they're a reflection of my family history.

I'm a fourth generation Nevadan and so from my mom's side of the family, they were settlers that came across very stoic, hard Nevadans, you know, worked in the mines and stuff.

And then on my dad's side of the family, that's the Aztec and Navajo.

And my grandma was a healer.

So a lot of my work reflects either side of the family.

It's Navajo teachings on that or Aztec symbolism or something that's reflective of the Nevada desert or the Great Basin.

Growing up in Nevada, I've always been drawn to the creatures and the animals and the habitat and I love the symbolism and the vast beauty of the desert and I try to reflect that in a lot of my pieces.

I've always been fascinated with snakes and the pattern and the texture and just the beauty of that snake.

In Navajo, the butterfly represents transformation, that we're always growing and evolving into something, you know, more beautiful.

If you take a look at the tortoise, the tortoise shell represents the birth of earth and it represents Mother Nature.

So you're putting beautiful images on there, but at the same time, you're able to tell a story and a meaning behind it.

I like to surround myself with the gourds in my studio.

Let's say I find the perfect gourd.

Sometimes I'll look at it and I'll see something come out of it, there's an image that needs to be put on it.

Then I clean it.

And it's got a nice, smooth, smooth surface that's really conducive to the wood burning on it.

And I sketch out my designs on it.

And then once I sketch it, then I start to burn it and just lighting burning it just to give it a light touch and to see how it goes.

When I'm making my art, there's nothing that separates me from the gourd because I have to hold it, I have to cradle it the whole time I'm working on it.

There's just this nice connection.

You almost go into a different state.

As you're burning it, the smell almost reminds you of sitting around the campfire.

It's very meditate and very relaxing.

Your mind can go off into different corners, especially when you're sitting around, you're embracing the gourd and there's just that earthy connection that I just love to work with.

- To learn more, visit tiaflores.com.

Brian Melendez of Reno has created a new form of meditation to bring the spirituality of the Great Basin Native people to the public.

This meditation is different from others and unique to the Northern Nevada area.

(calming music) - The meditation that we're gonna do today is called "Mahkwuhoo," and "Mahkwuhoo" in my language, which is the Paiute language, it's pretty much a literal translation that means something which is already done.

We're gonna come together as family and community, sit on the ground, we're going to focus and we're going to ask the spirits of our ancestors to guide us and teach us lots of things and connect back to the earth.

And then I'm going to share with you some really old ancient songs from my people just to give you a little bit more of a boost to walk into the world and feel good.

I myself am a Paiute person from this valley.

So the belief systems that I have in my culture and my language and my understanding is connected to the Great Basins, connected to this valley.

So this is the most localized Indigenous practice that we can have in our valley 'cause it's not imported from other places.

It is very much us here.

What I do as far as "Mahkwuhoo" meditation is I take my understand of my community and then compile all of that, like the essence of who we are as far as what our spirituality might be, and then create something, and then provide it to all people in the form of meditation.

I'm able to crosswalk ever single thing that is something that maybe a person of the Great Basin may have and take it from like the tribal space from the reservation and bring it out into non-tribal spaces.

And when I'm in non-tribal spaces, I'm able to share it in a way with all people of the world because the basis of the meditation is community, family, and their engagement with the land that they're on.

A lot of the people that come here, they come by themselves and they don't know anybody.

So when they get to be here and when they get that experience at the end where they get to hold hands and they get to hug and they get to have this experience, and I've seen so many people leave here making a friend and then they come back and all of a sudden, those circles get bigger and stronger and then there's more cohesive experiences for people.

- Brian reminds us that we don't have to do this alone.

We can pray and bring it to ceremony and meditate and be reminded that we're here all doing this together.

(Brian singing in foreign language) - And the singing and the drumming, it's really beautiful because they have so much meaning to us.

There are songs about people being born, there's songs about the water.

They're stories.

So it's our oral tradition and story coming out in song form.

And so there's different rhythms, and different harmonies, and different words, and different purpose and intention.

And so when we're doing this, that's what we're doing it for, is to raise the energy even more.

So for us to have the drums, and the noise, and the loudness, and kinda shake you a little bit, that's what we're after.

We want you to be just a little unsettled and just kinda remember that there's a lot of energy and a lot of power in the world and we're just a little part of it.

(Brian singing in foreign language) There are tribal people who still very much live here, and so I use the opportunity to have meditation to educate people as to the tribal belief systems that are already existing on the land.

The people that are here venturing in the city, they should understand and know that there are 27 federally recognized tribes in the state of Nevada and that we still very much have language, and culture, and tradition, and we have our connections back into these areas and that we're very much here and we're not going anywhere.

So that's why I use meditation because it's a really neutral vessel for me to take something and share something of my identity and culture with people from other different cultures in the world.

And they will be able to extract and absorb a lot of what I'm saying in their own way, in their own understanding.

(Brian singing in foreign language) - It's an art of how both the guide is an artist.

But I think I also become an artist.

I'm creating myself in the course of this ceremony or the course of this ritual where I feel I'm an artist of my own consciousness.

And that's a powerful thing.

(Brian singing in foreign language) - I try to invoke the spirit of my ancestors, my connection to the land, who I am, to give me insight and to give me direction as to what I'm to create next.

Because I very much believe that my job on this earth is to be a person of service.

So I don't think about the things in which I create solely just so I can have it and I can feel a certain way.

I feel that what I'm here to do is to provide a service back to the world.

My art has to be a reflection of the message in which I'm trying to live this world because I have no desire to create art that doesn't help people.

I wanna be the kind of artist that if I did something, it's because I took all of the momentum of my community and family to help me to do that.

The art that I create, it came from a really beautiful sacred place.

And that's what I'm trying to do.

(Brian singing in foreign language) - For more information, visit lucentree.com.

In our final segment, we explore the life of artist and activist, Jean LaMarr.

Jean uses printmaking, murals, and community workshops to address representations of Native Americans and traditions from her ancestors.

Jean shares an important message through her artwork, that the Native people of this land are still here.

We meet Jean in Susanville and at her exhibition of the Nevada Museum of Art to hear her story.

(woman singing in foreign language) - Well I hope when someone sees my work that they feel joy and feel the colors and how exciting the Indigenous life is and designs.

These were all created by my ancestors and they were experts in these fields.

- She has been committed to rejecting the idea of the vanished American Indian.

She wants audiences and everybody who sees her art to know that Native American cultures are a living and vibrant culture.

- So there's nothing about us in the fourth grade.

I never learned about California Indians, and I said, "Where are all the Indians?"

Because just me and my sisters were going to school and we were the ones that were getting beat up on.

- [Ann] When Jean went away to college at UC Berkeley, she was told by her professors that she couldn't include cultural content in her artwork, she couldn't paint things that had native relevance or cultural relevance or it would be considered folk art.

Jean has always rejected those types of ideas and she's been committed to forging her own path.

- I went to Berkeley and it was a class of over 500.

Peter Selz was the art historian talking and he made a comment about an artist's work and one student in the class said, "I object to that.

I don't think you're right about that.

I think it should be this way, and this way, and this way."

Right away, it felt like, "Oh, man, that guy, he's gonna be in a lot of trouble.

He'll get kicked out of class."

But Peter Selz welcomed that and thanked him for his input and said, "Yes, that did add to that."

So I finally realized I have a voice because we're the product of boarding school parents and students and we're told not to talk, say, dance, do anything whatsoever.

Well, finally, we get to be recognized.

We finally get to be recognized and we're proud of who we are.

We know our own history and nobody can put us away because we had a lot of brave people.

Because they were so brave, we're able to be alive now.

(women singing in foreign language) (bright guitar music) Murals are so important 'cause they're like a community statement, especially if you can go out and get the oral histories and learn some of the early histories and what really happened to the community.

You can put that image in that community and no non-Indian can come in there and say, "No, that's all wrong."

I worked on a mural in the gymnasium on the Susanville Indian Rancheria with the community.

The Susanville Indian Rancheria is where we all live.

Most Indian home places are called reservation, but in California, they called it a rancheria.

So this is the beginning of life.

So we heard about the coyote stories, and here's Mr. Coyote sneaking around to go looking for food.

We showed sagebrush and the baskets that are made from here.

It comes around here, too.

An era that was ancient from hundreds of years ago, they had layers and layers of baskets and moccasins.

Then it goes all the way over, goes to the times when Larson was here, and then to the bear dance that had been a real long tradition, then old man Joaquin is in the middle.

Then it comes to the contemporary times.

We're still alive, we're still celebrating our heritage and our culture.

This mural is done in Susanville, California on East Larson Street.

Our ancestors' our future, so I interviewed all these different people in town 'cause I know they had ancestors here from a long time ago.

We got a lot of good comments.

People walking by, "Oh, this is really nice."

The Indian people, I see them standing by their relatives, all the little kids standing in front of their relatives and they take a picture of it.

It's just really nice.

It's really nice.

That's what I like to see.

And I respect the fact that murals do need to be changed.

They can't stay forever.

It's not a Michelangelo where they have to keep repairing it.

So it reflects kind of like the times.

If we do murals, that says we're present, here and now.

That means we're still alive.

(bright guitar music) - In the early 1990s, Jean returned to her hometown of Susanville where she established the Native American Graphic Workshop.

The graphic workshop is a unique community hub where she brings together youth from the community, elders as well as different artists.

- It's fun for people to do.

It's kind of an introduction to printmaking, working with the oils, solvents, paper, how to handle press, how to handle the paper.

I got people that do some fantastic work, but they don't even realize what they're doing.

They're doing something beautiful.

'Cause if I could do it, they can do it.

I hope I can block down barriers.

(bright music) See, I like how the transparency looks.

It's not too heavy.

It's soften.

Then you can bring up some hard lines with a definite imagery.

- All of us here have either learned from her, worked with her, been inspired by her work, continue to be inspired by the work tonight.

We're gonna ask for Jamie and Toby Stump to come up and sing an honor song for Jean.

(upbeat drum music) (men singing in foreign language) - The Nevada Museum of Art is really proud and honored to be able to present this retrospective exhibition of Jean LaMarr's work.

It features over 50 years of her paintings, prints, murals, installations.

- I'm so grateful for Ann to giving me this opportunity.

No other museum would've given me this opportunity.

I'm a community artist, political artist, so it's difficult to get into a place.

(men singing in foreign language) - [Ann] As you're looking at Jean's artwork, you'll see a variety of symbols and motifs appear from time to time.

Sometimes that's a military fighter jet flying overhead, sometimes it's sort of this ubiquitous barbwire that you see throughout the American West, sometimes it's an American dollar sign, and she uses all of these symbols in different ways to critique American culture and to critique what has been a dominant culture that's for a long time suppressed Native American cultures in the United States.

(men singing in foreign language) - Everyone has a hope, everything has hope, happiness in there.

It might look negative, but there is hope for every little thing or I'm making fun of something.

I would never hurt anybody's feelings on purpose.

That's not my personality because we're really kindhearted people.

Being positive, being positive on all notes, there's a way out, there's hope.

There's always hope.

I always have that hope.

(men singing in foreign language) (audience cheering) - To learn more about Jean, visit greatbasinnativeartists.com.

And that wraps it up for this edition of "Arteffects."

If you want to watch new "Arteffects" segments early, make sure to check out the PBS Reno YouTube channel.

And don't forget to keep visiting pbsreno.org to watch complete episodes of "Arteffects."

Until next week, I'm Beth MacMillan.

Thanks for watching.

- [Narrator] Funding for "Arteffects" is made possible by Sandy Raffealli with Bill Pearce Motors, Meg and Dillard Myers, Heidemarie Rochlin, in memory of Sue McDowell, and by the annual contributions of PBS Reno Members.

(upbeat jazz music)