Shan Goshorn
Shan Goshorn (July 3, 1957 – December 1, 2018) was an Eastern Band Cherokee artist, who lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her interdisciplinary artwork expresses human rights issues, especially those that affect Native American people today. Goshorn used different media to convey her message, including woven paper baskets, silversmithing, painting, and photography. She is best known for her baskets with Cherokee designs woven with archival paper reproductions of documents, maps, treaties, photographs and other materials that convey both the challenges and triumphs that Native Americans have experienced in the past and are still experiencing today. Early life. Goshorn was born  on July 3, 1957, and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. She spent summers on the Qualla Boundary with her grandmother. She found most of her artistic inspiration in her teenage years when she worked for a summer at her tribe's Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual cooperative in Cherokee, North Carolina. There, she became familiar with leading Eastern Band Cherokee artists and art forms. This experience led to a job with the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, where she helped organize Native art exhibitions and photographed the harvesting and preparation raw materials for Cherokee basketmaking, carving, and other cultural art forms . After Goshorn graduated from college, the U.S. Department of the Interior's Indian Arts and Crafts Board commissioned her to illustrate 20 Cherokee basket patterns in pen and ink. These drawings taught her the math and rhythm of basket weaving and convinced her that she could weave a basket but she did not try until 2008, when she wove her first basket from paper splints. Education. Goshorn attended the Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio because of their silversmithing department. She was the only Native American student in the program and did not find support in exploring Native American customary  arts. Goshorn left the Cleveland Institute of Art and went to the Atlanta College of Art where she finished her Bachelor of Fine Arts. She found inspiration upon discovering "American Indian Art Magazine" and artists such as Fritz Scholder (Luiseño) and T.C. Cannon (Kiowa/Caddo). After these discoveries, Goshorn moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1981 to start her career. Collections. Baskets. Goshorn wove more than 200 baskets from 2009 to 2018. The Museum of the Cherokee Indian identified her as the 14th living Eastern Band Cherokee to master the difficult double-weave technique. A few examples of her double-weave  baskets include "Sealed Fate" (her first double weave), "Educational Genocide," "Reclaiming Our Power" and "Precious Holding." A few examples of her single-weave baskets include "No Honor," "10 Little Indians," "Prayers for Our Children," and "Why We Dance." Goshorn also modeled some of her baskets after those that would have had specific uses in the tribal community. Examples include her "Phishing Basket," modeled after a Southeastern Woodlands fishing basket, "Cherokee Burden Basket," modeled after a basket that would have been used to carry wood, corn, or other heavy burdens and "Separating the Chaff," modeled after a sifting or winnowing basket . In her later work, Shan Goshorn experimented with novel shapes, moving more in a direction of sculpture. "Hearts of Our Women" was woven in a way to mimic the flames of a fire, "The Fire Within" was woven in the shape of the Cherokee seven-sided star, and "Swept Away" was woven as a three-dimensional representation of the weaving pattern called "Water." Before her focus on baskets, Goshorn's work consisted largely of drawings, paintings, photography and hand-tinted photography. With her work, Goshorn presented historical and current issues with the portrayal of Native American people. Molly McGlennen writes  of Goshorn's baskets that they "reveal Indigenous versions of history, which necessarily uncover – rather than enshroud -- the chasms of division between Native and non-Native peoples." Section::::"Honest Injun". "Honest Injun" is one of Goshorn's series that addresses human rights issues specific to Native Americans. She chose a multitude of hand-tinted, black-and-white images of brands that use Indian images and names to sell their product. This collection was made in response to America's quincentennial celebration of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the Americas. Section::::"Reclaiming Cultural Ownership; Challenging Indian Stereotypes". This collection consisted of 36 black-and -white documentary style images of Native American people living every day life. This series worked to challenge the way that Indian people are portrayed by the media. Section::::"Kituwah Motherland". This double-exposed, hand-tinted black-and-white photograph helped to raise awareness of Duke Power's plan to build a power plant overlooking the Kituwa mound, one of the most sacred locations to the Cherokee people. Art career. Goshorn belonged to the art collective, the Urban Indian Five, along with Gerald Cournoyer (Oglala Lakota), Brent Greenwood (Chickasaw/Ponca), Thomas Poolaw (Kiowa), and Holly Wilson (Delaware Nation/Cherokee). The intertribal group  of artists were interested in exploring art's ability to help Native people overcome historical trauma. They exhibited works in Indian Health Services facilities. After her first double-weave work, Goshorn was awarded multiple fellowships and her work has been displayed in collections such as the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC), Gilcrease Museum (OK), IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (NM), CN Gorman Museum (UC Davis, CA), Minneapolis Institute of Art (MN), Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art (IN), and the Museum of the Cherokee Indian (NC). Goshorn received a 2013 Eiteljorg Contemporary  Art Fellowship, 2013 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, 2013 SWAIA Discovery Fellowship, the 2014 Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Fellowship and the 2015 United States Artists Fellowship. Death. Shan Goshorn died on December 1, 2018, from cancer at the age of 61. She is survived by her husband Tom Pendergraft; her mother, Edna Goshorn; two sisters; her son, Loma Pendergraft; daughter, Neosha Pendergraft; and three stepdaughters, Natalee, Carolee, and Sommer. After her death, SWAIA issued the statement: "The Native art world has lost a giant. Shan Goshorn was one of a kind, much like her art."