Melanie Tallmadge Sainz (Ho-Chunk Nation of WI) is an artist, cultural arts educator, and arts administrator serving in the capacity of Executive Director of Little Eagle Arts Foundation. Melanie is a mixed-media artist who specializes in the use of porcupine quills in her various portrait, floral, and geometric objects, along with clay tile/mixed media mosaics using locally sourced fibers and clays. Melanie received her Minority Business Management certificate at UW Madison and Art Education degrees from Arizona State University. She has been an artist in residence at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art in Indianapolis, IN, UW Whitewater in Whitewater, WI, Idyllwild Arts Academy in Idyllwild, CA, and, in the fall of 2026, she will be the artist in residence at UW Madison. She’s an exhibiting artist on the Fall Art Tour in south-central WI and 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. She currently creates and exhibits her art at Maa Wakacak (Ho-Chunk place name/English translation “sacred land”) art studio located at the former Badger Ordnance lands in Sauk County, WI.