Biography

Cheyenne Caraway is Mississippi Choctaw and Chickasaw from southern Oklahoma. In 2015, she earned a double BA in anthropology and studio art from Fort Lewis College, where she was first introduced to collection care as an undergraduate intern at the Center of Southwest Studies. Cheyenne was a museum contractor in the Four Corners region from 2016 to 2018. She became collections manager at the Southern Ute Museum in 2018. During this period, she assisted with a full collections inventory, installed exhibitions, and worked with the tribal legal department to update the Terms and Conditions of loans and Collections Management Policy to reflect the mission of the tribal council better. Furthermore, she strived to include input from the tribal members themselves. Cheyenne’s first immersive conservation experience was the 2018 Andrew W. Mellon Opportunity for Diversity in Conservation workshop. This week-long workshop was a transformative experience, confirming her desire to pursue a career in conservation. Cheyenne has since worked as a conservation intern at the National Museum of the American Indian, the American Museum of Natural History, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. Through these internships she has worked on a range of materials and pieces, including a Piipaash (Maricopa) cradleboard, a Tlingit (Chilkat) tunic, a Haida dance hat, and a pair of Coptic shoes. She has presented at the annual conference of the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums, as well as moderated a general session for the American Institute for Conservation. Cheyenne has worked with public, private, and sovereign nations; these include prehistoric, historical, and contemporary Indigenous art and collections. While at UCLA, Cheyenne hopes to continue taking holistic approaches to projects while prioritizing a Native perspective and cultivating relationships with Indigenous communities.