Melanie Tallmadge Sainz is an enrolled member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin. She was born in Baraboo and raised in the Wisconsin Dells area. She’s is an artist, cultural arts educator, and arts administrator. Melanie specializes in the use of porcupine quills in her various portrait, floral, and geometric objects and clay tile/mixed media mosaics using locally sourced fibers and clays. Melanie has exhibited her work at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC, the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ and the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art in Indianapolis, IN. Her local public art pieces can be found on the Great Sauk State Trail, the foyer at the Jack Young Middle School, and the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo. Visitors are welcome at Maa Wakacak (Ho-Chunk place name/English translation “sacred land”) art studio.