Weshoyot Alvitre is a Tongva and Scottish comic book artist, writer, and illustrator. She was born in the Santa Monica Mountains on the property of Satwiwa, a cultural center started by her father Art Alvitre. She grew up close to the land and raised with traditional knowledge that inspires the work she does today. Weshoyot’s work focuses on art and writing that visualizes historical material through an Indigenous lens.

Margarita Cabrera was born in 1973 in Monterrey, Mexico. She received her BFA in Sculpture in 1997 and her MFA in Combined Media in 2007, both from Hunter College in New York, NY. Cabrera has been the subject of several solo and two-person exhibitions, including at Plan b Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM (2002); Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Art Center, Austin, TX (2012); Ogden Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA (2019); and McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX (2022-23). She has also participated in many group exhibitions, including Declaration of Immigration, National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, IL (2008); Unraveled: Textiles Reconsidered, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH (2016); and Working Thought, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA (2022).

Gerald Clarke is an enrolled member of the Cahuilla Band of Indians and lives on the Cahuilla Indian Reservation. When not creating artwork or serving as Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside, Gerald oversees the Clarke family cattle ranch and remains heavily involved in Cahuilla culture. He is a frequent lecturer, speaking about Native art, culture and issues. He serves on the Cahuilla Tribal Council and works on issues affecting the tribe. When not working, Clarke participates in Bird Singing, a traditional form of singing that tells the cosmology of the Cahuilla people.

Katie Dorame is a Tongva visual artist of mixed white & Indigenous ancestry born in Los Angeles, currently living and working in Oakland, CA. She makes paintings and drawings that build her own directional vision: reclaiming, recasting and re-working Hollywood and its land, roles and history. Dorame's work has been exhibited at Shulamit Nazarian in Los Angeles, Guerrero Gallery in San Francisco, Form and Concept in Santa Fe and the de Saisset Museum in Santa Clara. She has attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe as an artist in residence, and the Interlude Residency in New York and contributed to SFMOMA's Open Space blog.

Harry Fonseca (1946 – 2006) was a world-renowned artist who used his drawings, prints, and paintings to both express his love of Maidu culture and share his experiences as a traditional dancer and active community member. Fonseca studied under the late Frank LaPena at California State University in Sacramento and learned about his culture from his uncle Henry Azbill and artist Frank Day. He then accessed this wealth of knowledge to artistically explore Maidu ceremonies and creation stories. His work has been shown nationally and internationally, and can be found in several prominent institutions, including the Autry Museum of the American West, the Crocker Art Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian.

Leah Mata Fragua is an artist, educator, and member of the Yak Tityu Tityu Yak Tiłhini (Northern Chumash) on the Central California Coast. As a place-based artist, Leah’s kincentric approach seamlessly blends shared iconography with personal imagery, highlighting the impact each has on the other. She uses a diverse range of materials to explore the interconnectedness and dependence between land, kinships, and self. Her art reflects the way she prioritizes the protection of traditional materials and the continuation of art forms that are important to her community and her individual practice. Leah is an adjunct professor at the Institute of American Indian Arts and her work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Fowler Museum at UCLA, Cara Romero Gallery, and Denver Art Museum.

Susanne Hammel- Sawyer is a Santa Ynez Chumash community member and basket weaver and a part of the Santa Ynez weaving group. Under the stewardship of the tribe's Culture Department, she studied the traditional practice of weaving from Master Basketweaver Abe Sanchez where she gathered and prepared materials to weave several detailed baskets. Susanne is playing an important role in ensuring that this vital artistry continues to be handed down for generations to come. Examples of Susanne’s works can be seen at the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum and the Santa Ynez Chumash Museum and Cultural Center.

Tima Link is a Šmuwič Chumash weaver and cultural educator. When Tima Link began learning Traditional Chumash basket making, she learned to weave together the knowledge of diverse Native peoples. A generation younger than many of her weaving counterparts, she has dedicated her life to learning, reviving and teaching California’s oldest and most rooted arts in her Chumash community and broadly to Native Peoples throughout California. She makes baskets, fish traps, bows, seed beaters, headdresses, cradles, boats, traditional houses, dolls, hats, jewelry, regalia, musical instruments, and canoe paddles. Each new skill she obtains is a small piece of her culture she can return to her community, though proximity to one another is her People’s greatest challenge.

Tom Lopez is a tribal elder and cultural teacher for the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. He has been heavily involved with the Chumash Maritime and is one of the paddlers who cross the Santa Barabara Channel to the Channel Islands in sewn-plank canoes each year. Not only is he a paddler, but he also assists in repairing and building new tomols. He works for the Culture department, focusing in culture, native garden, and language. Lopez has been involved in revitalization efforts within the Chumash community, including teaching the language, making regalia, and Chumash maritime culture.

Sheila Pinkel was born in 1941 in Newport News, Virginia. She holds an MFA from UCLA and from 1986 to 2011 she was Professor of Art at Pomona College. Pinkel’s 40-year career spans experimental light studies, socially-engaged documentary projects, and public art. Pinkel’s work has been exhibited extensively since the late 1970s and is held in the collections of numerous institutions, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Denver Art Museum; and the Musée National d’Art Moderne – Centre Pompidou, Paris. She lives and works in Los Angeles.

Denise Redfern is a traditional Iipai Kumeyaay jeweler featured in San Diego cultural museums and center. She is a bird dancer, farmer, jewelry-maker, and traditional cook. In 2023 her business of beaded jewelry and various other Native arts, and her social media page featuring her cultural practices and being a mom, was highlighted in News for Native California. Her art has been featured in other exhibitions like the art exhibit “Our Ancestors’ Dream: Between Three Worlds.”

Cara Romero is an enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe and a contemporary fine art photographer. Romero was raised between contrasting settings: the rural Chemehuevi reservation in Mojave Desert, CA and the urban sprawl of Houston, TX. Romero’s identity informs her photography, a blend of fine art and editorial photography, shaped by years of study and a visceral approach to representing Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural memory, collective history, and lived experiences from a Native American female perspective. Maintaining a studio in Santa Fe, NM, Romero regularly participates in Native American art fairs and panel discussions, and her award-winning work is included in many public and private collections internationally.

Monique Sol Sonoquie is a Tongva, Chumash Cultural Bearer working in traditional healing and cultural materials. Her art includes baskets, jewelry, sculpture, and imagery. As a Basketweaver, Sonoquie has embodied many aspects of her rich cultural heritage in her life and work, and she gathers and makes baskets with traditional materials. With limited access to gathering sites and materials, due to toxins, land loss and climate change, she has found alternative materials to preserve culture and land. Her newfound challenge and exploration is weaving and creating with recycled materials, combining her passions of Traditional weaving and her dedication for “Refuse, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.”