Great Basin Native Artists
CAE1906
Summary Note
Great Basin Native Artists is a collective of Indigenous artists living in/or originally from the Great Basin areas of Nevada, California, Southern Oregon, Southern Idaho, and Utah. Materials include documents, digital images, articles, exhibition ephemera, posters, prints, and press materials.Biographical Note
Melissa Melero-Moose was born in San Francisco, CA in 1974 and spent most of her childhood living near Reno, Nevada. She is a mixed media visual artist, mother, and a Northern Paiute enrolled with the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, NM and a Bachelor of Science from Portland State University in Oregon. She exhibits her art regionally and nationally and has won numerous awards and acknowledgement for her work from the Nevada Arts Council, Southwest Association of Indian Arts, and artist fellowships from the School for Advanced Research, SWAIA, the Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe, NM and the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV.
Melero-Moose currently lives in Hungry Valley, Nevada working as a professional artist and founder of the art collective, the Great Basin Native Artists (GBNA). Her work can be seen at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, NM and in select galleries throughout the U.S. She is currently exhibiting regionally with the GBNA group. Her current influences are imagery found in the Nevada landscape, petroglyphs, beadwork, and basketry from the Native tribes of Nevada and California.
Scope and Content
Great Basin Native Artists is a collective of Indigenous artists living in/or originally from the Great Basin including all areas of Nevada, the eastern sierras of California, southern Oregon, southern Wyoming and Idaho, and portions of Utah. “The Great Basin Native Artists sense of place is very important. Like with any place, the art reflects all aspects of place. The mission of the GBNA archive is to create better knowledge of the art and peoples of the Great Basin and to create opportunities for this underrepresented region in all forms of the arts.”
The archive currently includes materials from more than a hundred artists. Materials include documents, digital images, articles, exhibition ephemera, posters, prints, and press materials.
Arrangement
- Series 1: Individual Artists
- Series 2: Artist Groups
- Series 3: Group Exhibitions
- Series 4: Conferences
- Series 5: Press and Media
Quantity / Extent
Language
Related Archive Collections
Related Publications
Aguilar, Dugan and Theresa Harlan, ed. She Sang Me a Good Luck Song: The California Indian Photographs of Dugan Aguilar. Berkeley, CA: Heyday, 2015.
Bartow, Rick. Wings and Sweat. Portland, OR: Jamison Thomas Gallery, 1992.
Bates, Sara. Indian Humor. San Francisco, CA: American Indian Contemporary Arts, 1995.
Bisgyer-Lauer, Magda. National American Indian Women’s Art Show. Washington, DC: Via Gambaro Studio-Gallery, 1980.
Clarke, Gerald. Gerald Clarke: Falling Rock. Palm Springs, CA: Palm Springs Art Museum, 2020.
DeSoto, Lewis. Arbor / Ardor: Photographs, Video and Performance. Oakland, CA: Chandra Cerrito Contemporary, 2016.
Dobkins, Rebecca J. Rick Bartow: My Eye. Salem, OR: Hallie Fors Museum of Art, 2002.
Douglas, Fawn. Ah’-Wah-Nee: Exhibition and Symposium. Las Vegas, Nevada: University of Nevada, 2022.
Enos, Rose Kelly. Nisenan Acorn Book. Pala, CA: Tribal Print Source, 2022.
Fonseca, Harry. Harry Fonseca: Earth, Wind, and Fire. Santa Fe, NM: Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, 1996.
Fulkerson, Mary Lee. Weavers of Tradition and Beauty: Basketmakers of the Great Basin. Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press, 1995.
Henry, Karma. Karma Henry. Publica place not identified: self-published, not dated.
Lowry, Judith. Illuminations: Paintings. Santa Fe, NM: Wheelright Museum of the American Indian, 1999.
Mithlo, Nancy. “Our Indian Princess”: Subverting the Stereotype. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research, 2009.
Nevada Museum of Art. Ben Aleck. Reno, NV: Nevada Museum of Art, 2023.
Ross, Karrie. Artists, ART, & Story: Southern California. Los Angeles, CA: Be It Now!, 2016.
Santiago, Chiori. Home to Medicine Mountain. San Francisco, CA: Childrens Book Press, 1998.
Smith, Jaune Quick-to-See. The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2023.
Smith, Juane Quick-to-See. Indigenous Identities: Here, Now, Always. New Brunswick, NJ: Zimmerli Art Museum for Rutgers, 2025.
Smith, Juane Quick-to-See. Our Land/Ourselves: American Indian Contemporary Artists, an Exhibition. Albany, NY: University at Albany, 1990.
Under One Sky: Nevada's Native American Heritage. Reno, NV: University of Nevada Oral History Program, 2003. DVD.
Wolfe, Ann M. Jack Malotte. Reno, NV: Nevada Museum of Art, 2019.
Wolfe, Ann M. Judith Lowry. Reno, NV: Nevada Museum of Art, 2025.