Materials: Birch wood and Sage ashes
Dimensions: 36” X 48”
Location: Nevada City, Occupied Nisenan Land
Date: October 2014
Four portraits of local Nisenan ancestors were created and placed on the mountain side at the For-Site Foundation in Nevada City. The portraits are facing the buttes in view to the west where the sun sets and the Nisenan creation stories say is where they came from and go to in the afterlife. The four are grandparents and great grandparents of Shelly Covert, the Secretary of the Nisenan Tribe. The Nisenan lived in what became Nevada City when miners showed up to the area during the gold rush in 1849 and they lost most of their land where they held ceremonies, gatherings and lived since time immemorial.
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