Grounded Strength

Shan Goshorn
2017
Approx 8” X 9” X 6.25”                                                                                                                      
Arches watercolor paper, archival inks, acrylic paint, artificial sinew 

This single weave, paper basket includes my hand-tinted, double-exposed black and white photograph of a Cherokee woman. She is wearing a traditional style feather cape, kneeling in front of the Smokey Mountains, our ancestral homeland. The text combined in the weave is created from a list I compiled per a social media request, asking for names of extraordinary Indian women, past and present. In less than 48 hours, I received over 700 names. 

This basket is a comment on the strength, endurance and wisdom acquired through the generations of native women across the continent. When traditional knowledge is shared with other women, it strengthens the collective ability to foster excellence among native people. 

Many of these blood memories are gifts from our ancestral mothers who now rest in the soil of our homelands. To illustrate this crucial connection to our original mother, the earth, I chose a traditional Cherokee basket pattern that is known by two names: "Mountains" and "Water."