NARRATOR: Like most of Grace Carpenter Hudson's paintings, Kodina has an ethnographic quality, immersing us in details of an Indigenous community. It offers a staged glimpse into Pomo Indian life around the 1880s. For Sherri Smith Ferri, it’s the baskets that steal the show.

SHERRIE SMITH FERRI: I must put the disclaimer that I am Pomo Indian, and I totally believe that Pomo baskets are the best in the world.

I am Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for Dry Creek Rancheria of which I'm a member, and I was formerly the director and curator of the Grace Hudson Museum.

NARRATOR: Before Euro-American settlers arrived in Native California, baskets were key, practical tools in Indigenous life.

SHERRIE SMITH FERRI: Baskets were used for hunting and fishing, preparing food, gathering food, storing food, cooking food, eating food. I can go on and on, but life really would not be possible without basketry.

But baskets then can become something that you can sell for money to be able to live.

NARRATOR: In this painting, Hudson depicts a woman doing just that.

SHERRIE SMITH FERRI: She's doing exactly what, for many thousands of years her ancestors would have been doing, but she is undoubtedly doing it in a new context and for a new reason.

What you see are people who have survived devastating changes in their life imposed by Western people coming in, taking their land and settling it, and you have people figuring out: how do we survive in a totally changed world? And this is one of the ways they did. They became wage laborers. You have people that are now dependent on money, something they never were before to provide a lot of their food, shelter, to provide clothes. And that's what you're seeing.