Tag: Tulsa, Oklahoma

Shan Goshorn, “Pieced Treaty: Spider’s Web Treaty basket,” 2007. Ernest Amoroso/National Museum of the American Indian Shan Goshorn, an acclaimed Cherokee multimedia artist who incorporated political activism into her work, died on Dec. 1 in Tulsa, Okla. She was 61. Shan Goshorn, “Self Portrait in Artist Studio,” 1996. Ms. Goshorn’s work is among the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, the Denver Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, N.M., the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, N.C., and the North American Native Museum in Zurich. Her mother is Cherokee. She grew up in Baltimore and graduated from high school there before moving with her family to Cherokee County, N.C., where her mother is from, in the mountainous southwestern part of the state. Shan Goshorn, “Cross Culture,” 2013. It was not until 2008 that she turned to basket weaving as an art form. The craft is usually passed down through generations, but because no one in her family had known how to weave baskets, Ms. Goshorn taught herself. In addition to her mother and Ms. Beck, she is survived by her husband; a daughter, Neosha Pendergraft; a son, Loma; another sister, Diane Goshorn; and three stepdaughters, Natalie, Carolee and Sommer Pendergraft.