Growing up in Wisconsin Dells, Melanie Tallmadge Sainz witnessed hundreds of thousands of visitors come to see Native American art and artifacts.
“I literally grew up in a museum,” she says, referring to the Winnebago Public Indian Museum, which her parents ran from 1953 to 2000.
INSPIRED SPACE: When Sainz works on a clay tile installation, she does so at the studio space of the Little Eagle Arts Foundation north of Baraboo. It gives her room to spread out and access to a kiln. “And I can open up the garage doors and there’s the natural beauty of Sauk County,” she says. “It’s inspiration all around.”
SMALL BUT MIGHTY: For years, Sainz filled the margins of notebooks with doodles of a portrait she would one day bring to life using porcupine quills and deerskin. Two such works feature Ho-Chunk bloodline chief (and her uncle) Michael John Winneshiek and Frida Kahlo. Sainz says Winneshiek inspired her to become a quillwork artist, and Kahlo is one of her many she-roes.
GROUP EFFORT: In 2020, Sainz and the Little Eagle Arts Foundation unveiled “Earth, Sky, Water” a mural placed on the Great Sauk Trail. During the pandemic, Sainz reached out to four local Ho-Chunk families, who came with their “[pandemic] bubbles” to the studio to build and paint tiles that would become part of the installation.
PUBLIC DISPLAYS: In 2021, Sainz led student volunteers in creating tiles for “Tee Wakącąk,” a mural depicting what is now commonly known as Devil’s Lake. It’s displayed at Jack Young Middle School in Baraboo. This spring she also got students involved at the Wingra School in Madison for a public art piece about nearby Lake Wingra.
Melanie Tallmadge Sainz gallery
INSPIRED SPACE: When Sainz works on a clay tile installation, she does so at the studio space of the Little Eagle Arts Foundation north of Baraboo. It gives her room to spread out and access to a kiln. “And I can open up the garage doors and there’s the natural beauty of Sauk County,” she says. “It’s inspiration all around.”
SMALL BUT MIGHTY: For years, Sainz filled the margins of notebooks with doodles of a portrait she would one day bring to life using porcupine quills and deerskin. Two such works feature Ho-Chunk bloodline chief (and her uncle) Michael John Winneshiek and Frida Kahlo. Sainz says Winneshiek inspired her to become a quillwork artist, and Kahlo is one of her many she-roes.
GROUP EFFORT: In 2020, Sainz and the Little Eagle Arts Foundation unveiled “Earth, Sky, Water” a mural placed on the Great Sauk Trail. During the pandemic, Sainz reached out to four local Ho-Chunk families, who came with their “[pandemic] bubbles” to the studio to build and paint tiles that would become part of the installation.
PUBLIC DISPLAYS: In 2021, Sainz led student volunteers in creating tiles for “Tee Wakącąk,” a mural depicting what is now commonly known as Devil’s Lake. It’s displayed at Jack Young Middle School in Baraboo. This spring she also got students involved at the Wingra School in Madison for a public art piece about nearby Lake Wingra.
