about the artist

He:yung/Ayukîi/Manahu!

Kinsinta is the creator of Payahupaway. She is an indigenous artist from the rivers of the Klamath Basin in Northern California. On her maternal side, she is Hupa & Karuk. On her paternal side she is Nuumu/Newe (Paiute/Shoshone)  from the Payahuunadu (the land of the flowing water) in the Eastern Sierra.  

At a young age, the matriarchs in her family taught her  the old motions of weaving,  how to assemble regalia, & connection to traditional songs. Grounded in those teachings, she finds her flow as a co-creator. The oral traditions that she grew up with say that whatever we create has life. This has molded her approach to the materials of her work. Kinsinta says that all art, all things we create, hold an energy based on what we choose to invest in them.

She never considered herself as an "artist” in her youth. About her practices of making, she says, “It’s just what my people do. We are all artists.” Starting Payahupaway helped her to assert herself as a creator and  an artist, as she fell in love with the act of sending her work off to people from different places, sharing a piece of her home with them. 

In Nuumu Yadoha  (the Paiute  Language), “Payahuupawei“ means where the water flows. This name holds the water of the Payahuunadu, as well as the name  of her maternal community. It is the perfect way to incorporate both of the places that Kinsinta comes from. 

Kinsinta‘s art comes from the traditional materials that her ancestors used in their regalia and baskets. Gathering these materials is an active process that is essential to the well-being of the land, the animals, and ourselves. When makers go to gather, they are tending the land, practicing traditional ecological knowledge that has sustained homes, communities, & eco systems for millennia. This is where artists, makers, &  weavers learn what it means to be in relationship. Out on the land people are taught Where Water Flows, Medicine Grows. 

In addition to creating handmade art, Kinsinta is a mama to one baby girl and twin boys. She is the second to the youngest of 9 siblings, 4 sisters, and 5 brothers. Her parents met in the 1970’s during the Fish Wars, an Indigenous movement to reassert Native Treaty rights to live and fish on the Klamath River.