A Great Selection at Nah-Y-Yah Native Arts

Yvonne Thomas-Miller is a Native American of the Lummi Nation & resides on the Lummi Reservation near Bellingham Washington.  She received her associate of arts degree from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico and her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in 1984 from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.  In 1984, just as she was receiving her degree, Yvonne began to lose her eyesight and, with increased complication, became Legally Blind by 1987.  Before the loss of her sight, Yvonne was a painter and illustrator who was just beginning to gain a reputation for her work.  After periods of depression, Family support, and self-searching, Yvonne began to restructure her life with the realization that she could either move ahead or spend the rest of her life in depression.  She decided to move forward and began taking classes in Braille.  Then, after gaining more confidence in her abilities, she began to pursue the visual arts.  She enrolled at Northwest Indian College in Lummi, Washington, where with the help of instructors she began to learn sculptural processes.  At Northwest Indian College she discovered that sculpture was an ideal medium which allowed her to make use of her talents with a minimal impact from her loss of vision.  With the rich cultural history of the Lummi People to draw from, Yvonne has found that incorporating it into the three-dimensional form of sculpture allows her to contribute, as an artist, to the continuing intercultural exchanges between Native America and the population at large.