Andrea Graham

Theresa Smokey Jackson

Washoe basket maker Theresa Smokey Jackson came from a long line of weavers. She started learning to make willow baskets when she was just a teenager. She and her sister, JoAnn Smokey Martinez, grew up speaking Washoe and participating in many traditional Native American ways of life such as gathering pine nuts and basket materials. Jackson had extensive knowledge of Washoe customs, which she generously shared and passed on to younger generations.

Sue Coleman

Sue Coleman of Carson City, Nevada, is carrying on a generations-deep family tradition of basket weaving from her Native American, Washoe heritage. The daughter of Theresa Smokey Jackson, whose own mother and grandmother were weavers, Coleman takes great pride in maintaining the family legacy.

Sierra Arts Foundation

Sierra Arts Foundation (SAF) is the local nonprofit arts agency for Reno and the rest of Washoe County, and also serves other communities within a one-hundred-mile radius in northern Nevada. It was founded in 1971 and was run as an all-volunteer organization until 1977, when the first professional staff was hired.

Reno Arts and Culture Commission

The mission of the City of Reno's Arts & Culture Commission is to "secure, enhance, advocate and fund excellence in the arts in the City of Reno." Their primary activities include managing a grant program for arts organizations, overseeing the city's public art program, running several galleries in City Hall and other facilities, managing the McKinley Arts & Culture Center and rental spaces in other city-owned buildings, serving as a resource for and partner with other cultural organizations in the area, and advising the city on cultural issues.

Nevada Opera

Nevada Opera, based in Reno, is the oldest professional performing arts organization in Nevada. It was founded in 1968 by Ted and Deena Puffer, who gave the organization a solid foundation and trained many talented artists. The opera has produced over 140 operas, operettas, and musicals over the years, and translations by the Puffers are regularly in use today.

Nevada Museum of Art

The Nevada Museum of Art (NMA), located in Reno, is the oldest cultural institution in the state. It was founded in 1931 as the Nevada Art Gallery and occupied three different locations before moving to its current home, the first designed specifically for the museum, in 2003.

Nevada Arts Council

The Nevada Arts Council (NAC) is a state agency charged with the mission "to enrich the cultural life of the state through leadership that preserves, supports, strengthens, and makes excellence in the arts accessible to all Nevadans." The NAC is an agency of the Nevada Department of Cultural Affairs and has offices in Carson City and Las Vegas.

National Automobile Museum

The National Automobile Museum evolved out of casino magnate William F. Harrah's well-known auto collection, and opened in 1989 in its current facility on the banks of the Truckee River in downtown Reno. The museum has been ranked one of the top ten automobile museums in the country by Car Collector magazine and by the editor in chief of Road & Track magazine, and as one of the top sixteen internationally by AutoWeek magazine.

McKinley Arts and Culture Center

The McKinley Arts & Culture Center is housed in the former McKinley Park School and is owned and operated by the City of Reno and its Arts & Culture Commission. The school was built in 1909 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was renovated and opened as an arts center in 1999.

Lilly Sanchez

Lilly V. Sanchez was born in Duckwater, Nevada, in 1923 and was raised in a traditional Native American, Western Shoshone family, helping her mother and grandmother gather willows for baskets. After her children were grown, Sanchez reawakened the basket making skills she learned as a child. For more than thirty years she has been creating beautiful cradleboards, winnowing trays, cone baskets, and other traditional forms in willow.

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