Wisconsin Life

Porcupine quills connect past and present for artist Melanie Sainz

[gentle music]

Melanie Tallmadge Sainz: Being creative is such a healthy way to engage in one’s life. I usually try to start my day being creative, yeah. My name is Melanie Tallmadge Sainz. I am a creative maker and artist, cultural arts presenter, as well as the founding director of Little Eagle Arts Foundation.

Little Eagle Arts Foundation, sometimes we go by the acronym LEAF. We are a standalone, Native-run, 501c3. Little Eagle was my father’s Indian name.

Growing up, I was always around Native art, and it was just kinda, through osmosis, it was something that I was always so inspired by. You know, it’s something that we as Native peoples, we’ve been using the quill of the porcupine long before the introduction of the glass bead.

So, like, maybe your grandma did cross-stitching or needlepoint or embroidery. She would probably use a cotton floss, like a thread. I substitute porcupine quills.

I just have always wanted to capture the portrait of people that have been really important to me as a human being and growing up. To be able to take kinda those, use of light and darks in terms of the tonal qualities that you see in a face, and adapt a whole range of dyed quills to match up those tonal qualities, and then to utilize the quills to kinda match up the mosaic kinda qualities, almost like pop art.

One of the places that I get the most inspiration is just opening the garage door here and walking amongst the land. Doing sketches of, you know, the flora and fauna in the area, or the landscape. Sometimes that can inspire me.

You can’t get any closer to the connection with the earth than working in clay, and I’ve been all over the country, and I’ve been to different parts of the world, Japan and Guatemala and Spain, and I’m always looking for natural sources of clay, you know. Because the use of clay is universal.

The thing I love about our Native peoples is they’re always so willing to share and advise. You know, art has a way of really bringing people together.

Good things come to those who wait, and art, sometimes it takes a little longer than anticipated. But I think it’s worth it, in my opinion.