[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.