Capital City Arts Initiative

Stewart Indian Museum and Beadworks
Nevada Neighbors Talk

In the public talk, Stewart Indian Museum and Beadworks, artists discuss their shared love of beadworks and their histories as Stewart alumnae. The Capital City Art Initiative’s Nevada Neighbors series presents artists Dale Bennett, Linda Eben Jones, Janice Eben Stump, and curator Melissa Melero-Moose along with museum director, Bobbi Rahder. The public is invited to watch the talk online at https://youtu.be/-IHm2Ey7wZ4

The Stewart Indian School Cultural Center & Museum is located at 1 Jacobsen Way, Carson City, Nevada, and is open to the public M-F, 10am – 5pm, except on state and federal holidays.

The Stewart Indian Museum features intricate beadwork designs by artists Bennett, Jones, and Stump in its BEADS: Indigenous Beadwork of the Great Basin exhibition, April 22 — November 5, 2021.

In addition to making her own art pieces, Janice Eden Stump teaches beadwork to young people and feels that it nurtures their self-esteem and builds value into their creations. Through beading, she trains the young artists on design and color schemes and encourages their pride when wearing their work. She attended the Stewart Boarding School from 1968 – 1972. Stump earned her BA degree in Museum Studies from the Institute of Arts in Sante Fe, NM, in 2007. Stump serves her community as a member of the Reno Sparks Indian Colony’s cultural committee and the powwow club and as a docent for the Stewart Indian Museum.

Linda Eben Jones is a beadwork artist, jeweler, dance regalia maker, and doll maker. She is a member of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and part of the Great Basin Paiute, Shoshone, and Washoe tribes. Jones attended the Stewart Boarding School from 1963-1966. She has retired from over 30 years working in Human Resources, Forest Service, and other government positions. Jones consulted on the Nevada State Museum’s Under One Sky exhibition and exhibits with the Pyramid Lake Museum and the Reno-Sparks Cultural Center. She volunteers as a docent at the Stewart Museum and at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.

When Dale Bennett was 13 years old, she was sent to the Stewart Indian School and lived there from 1969-1973. She said, “I learned how to bead at Stewart from my maiden. I still love to bead and I have done work for various movie stars and movie directors. Beading is my passion and for the last 2 years my work has really taken off.” Bennett is from the Washoe and Paiute tribes. All through the years she has been beading and having classes for native children, her work and students’ work has excelled. Bennett volunteers at Stewart and has lived in Woodfords, CA, for the past 37 years.

Melissa Melero-Moose was curator for the BEADS: Indigenous Beadwork of the Great Basin  exhibition. She is a mixed-media visual artist and writer. She is a Northern Paiute enrolled with the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe and lives with her family in Hungry Valley, Nevada. She is a contributing writer for First American Art Magazine and founder/curator of the art collective, the Great Basin Native Artists (GBNA). Melissa holds a BFA degree from the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and a BS degree from Portland State University, Oregon. She exhibits her art regionally and nationally and has won numerous awards and acknowledgement for her work. She has received artist fellowships and grants from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York; the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada; the School for Advanced Research, Southwest Association of Indian Arts, Wheelwright Museum, and the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico.   

The GBNA is an organization consisting of professional and emerging Indigenous artists, residing in/or originally from the Great Basin area of Nevada, eastern Sierra California, southern Oregon, southern Idaho, and Utah. GBNA educates the community about Great Basin Native art and artists.

Anthropologist Terri McBride submitted the following history of the Stewart students’ work. “Alida Bowler, a Progressive with ties to Franklin D. Roosevelt, became the first female Superintendent in the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1934, working at the Stewart campus for five years until 1939. She helped organize the Wa-Pai-Shone Craftsmen, Inc. artists’ cooperative in 1936, with a group of Stewart high school seniors.

“Only Great Basin Native Americans could sell their art at Wa-Pai-Shone. The organization was extremely progressive for those days, in that all proceeds from the sale of items went directly back to the artisans. The buckskin and beaded items sold at Wa-Pai-Shone posts were mostly made by Paiute craftswomen, while most basketry was made by Washoe and Shoshone craftswomen. Several years later, woodcarvings from Nevada’s “mountain mahogany” made by boys at Stewart enrolled in a special stone- and wood-carving program named Tebe Nobe, were also available for purchase.

“In 1941 there were four Wa-Pai-Shone trading posts: on the Stewart campus, in Crystal Bay on Lake Tahoe’s north shore (in operation summer months), Death Valley (in operation winter months) and Bishop, CA, on Highway 395. It had 155 cooperative members and a net worth of $6,000. Approximately another $9,000 was paid to crafts makers during Wa-Pai-Shone’s first five years of operation.”

The Capital City Arts Initiative is an artist-centered nonprofit organization committed to community engagement in contemporary visual arts through exhibitions, arts education programs, artist residencies, and online activities.

The Initiative is funded by the John and Grace Nauman Foundation, the Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Nevada Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, Carson City Cultural Commission, Kaplan Family Charitable Fund, U.S. Bank Foundation, Southwest Gas Corporation Foundation, Steele & Associates LLC, and CCAI sponsors and members.

The Governor’s Office of Economic Development provided additional support through its Nevada Pandemic Emergency Technical Support Grant for 2021.

top image, right: [l-r] Museum Director, Bobbi Rahder, artist Linda Eben Jones, artist Janice Eben Stump at the Stewart Indian Museum, October, 2021
2nd image, left: artist Dale Bennett at Stewart Indian Museum gift shop, 2021
3rd image, right: artist and curator, Melissa Melero-Moose, with the Beadworks exhibition, 2021
bottom image: Stewart Indian Museum and Beadworks flier