Wild Blues
Artists in Residence
Greater Hells Canyon Council’s annual Artist-in-Residence (Wild Blues AiR) program creates a unique opportunity to engage with communities in our mission area through creative expression.
2025 Artists: Caretakers of the Land (Naknuwiłama TiičA̓mna)
Caretakers of the Land is an indigenous-led organization managed by Bobby Fossek, Brosnan Spencer, and their daughter, Meadow, who are affiliated with Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Yakama, and Klickitat peoples. Their work focuses on revitalizing culturally significant arts, crafts, and lifeways of the Mid-Columbia River Basin and the Blue Mountain Bioregion. Those include natural basketry, hide tanning, and traditional food ways.
“Never take more than is needed, always give back, allow them time to rest and replenish, and speak for them when the time comes that this covenant is being broken.”
– Bobby Fossek, Caretakers of the Land, Cove, Oregon
Greater Hells Canyon Council is grateful to Caretakers of the Land for sharing their deep physical and spiritual relationship with the refugia of the Blue Mountains in 2025.
Their residency culminated in an exquisite presentation of the traditional style root basket woven by Brosnan, tule reed mats, dried herbs for teas, and more, a hands-on workshop in Cove, and a lyrical, storytelling keynote talk at GHCC's Fall Gala in La Grande. During their presentation, the family shared reflections on our reciprocal responsibilities to the land and how deep, long-standing relationships with native plants like dogbane and tule teach us the importance of stewardship, culture, and connection.
About Caretakers of the Land
Brosnan Spencer/Wiweeletitpe (From the place of many streams) is a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Robert (Bobby) Fossek II/Tiiča̓m K̓iluła( Earth Watcher) is a lineal descendant of the Walla Walla People. Their daughter, Meadow/Taymaatayxpam (From the place where love medicine grows), is a skilled participant and educator.
Brosnan Spencer, and daughter Meadow gathering Xawš (Lomatium cous) in the spring.
For the residency, Brosnan, Bobby, and Meadow gathered dogbane hemp and tule in traditional ways, with gratitude and reciprocity. At the Good Bear Ranch, they spent many hours creating cordage. Brosnan’s resulting root basket represents a significant return to traditional ways—completely woven with native fibers. The stay at Good Bear gave the family the time and space to reconnect with these ancient skills in a deeper way, according to Brosnan and Bobby.
As part of storytelling at the Greater Hells Canyon Council gala, Bobby shared the importance of dogbane, willow, and hemp and concluded with these resonant words:
The Residency
“This is merely a small glimpse into the relationships that form the Refugia of the Blue Mountains and the gifts being offered. It is solely because of these advanced beings that we have been provided with the possibility for human existence here for thousands of years as well as today.
Every plant, animal, insect, microorganism, location, river, stream, wetland, canyon, valley, stone, and mountain have their own story to tell and gifts to offer. When we can humble ourselves, open our hearts and minds, and abandon the mindsets of human-centered domination, then we prepare ourselves to hear and receive the messages.
When we take the time to learn from these Elders who have been here much longer than we have, they can lend us the strength to face challenges, to find our true power and insights, and to adapt to the changes that are in front of us as the stewards of the Blue Mountain Eco-Region today. “
– Bobby Fossek, Caretakers of the Land, Cove, Oregon
Dogbane Workshop
Dogbane Workshop—an evening of creating cordage from local, native dogbane (Apocynum, Taxwus or Indian Hemp), a natural fiber native to the Blue Mountains.
At the workshop, Robin Coen, GHCC Board Member and founder of Wild Blues AiR, shared:
"Imagine a circle of 20 chairs around a large pile of dry dogbane stems. There is happy chatter and questions as we all gather a few stems and sit to begin. We strip the fiber from the stems and are shown how to twist and roll our strands into an amazingly strong piece of cordage. This cordage is essential to the making of such important items as tule mats and baskets. We are shown a display of the beautiful baskets and tule mats completed by Caretakers.
After laboring for over an hour to make 18” of cordage, I am reminded of how sacred and valued these baskets must be. They will last for generations and be handed down from mother to daughter to granddaughter. Throw away culture is not considered here. As for me, I have my short piece of cordage stowed in a place where I can see it often and be reminded of a way of life that feels whole and at peace with the earth."
Featured works
More about Caretakers of the Land
Caretakers of the Land works in collaboration with various Tribal Programs and Indigenous organizations to carry out various seasonal round camps, workshops, and events focused on retaining and sharing culturally relevant skills and natural ways of living. Some of their major projects include seasonal food, medicine, and materials gathering and processing encampments, buckskin making, cedar root and other forms of weaving, native hemp cordage and rope, therapeutic horsemanship, camas root gathering and earth oven baking, canoeing, habitat restoration, and many other crafts and activities.
They walk in the footsteps of their ancestors who have been making their rounds between the “Big River” (The Snake), the Grande Ronde, and the Wallowa Mountains since time immemorial. They are devoted to reconnecting and reawakening these movement patterns.
Their seasonal journeys can be followed along through Facebook and Instagram.
Donate at www.coveascensionschool.com, click the donate button, and select "Caretakers of the Land" from the menu.
You can read about salmon extinction in this article from the Idaho Capital Sun, featuring Caretakers of the Land by Pat Ford.
The 2025 Wild Blues Artist in Residence is generously sponsored by:
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