Mural Project: 'Visit with Respect' in Bluff, Utah

 

I began my collaboration "Visit with Respect" mural journey on September 26th (which was my birthday)with the help of Friends of Cedar Mesa and Tsé Kǫǫh Outfitters located in Bluff, Utah.

Since the early months of 2020, when my maternal grandmother's passing, this adventure was the first time I really felt a kind of 'happiness' in my spirit  The process of making art, perpetuating the creative heals the spirit is a fact as far as I'm concerned.  I have always advocated for the concept of art as a healing agent for the spirit.  This recent mural experience in southeast Utah has re-awakened my artist muse.

Kǫǫh Outfitters blank wall facing west

The initial communication occurred via a Zoom meeting with before mentioned organization and business in mid-August.  A mural was needed for the community, and this mural needed to convey a very specific and necessary message; Visit with Respect.

Day one of my mural project

I understood the necessity of such a message and was grateful to create this mural.  From the very beginning of the sketch designs, I approached great understanding of respect for the environment and therefore land stewardship.  "Land stewardship" is a euro-American word, but for the Native, Indigenous person to the land of North America his is an innate act of caring for the land. Through some online searching of the concept I found this. Principles of land stewardship include:

Balanced and Sustainable- Responsible and Responsive- Respectful- Relevant and Informed- Coordinated and Collaborative- Fair and Equitable -Transparent and Accountable

Venaya at the wall on day three of mural project

When Shash Jaa, or Bear Ears, as it is known by the American public was designated a national monument there was much concern by the Indigenous native people of the high desert southwest community.  The tribes of the Hopi, Zuni, Ute and Navajo people were and still are deeply concerned about the ways that tourists, many of whom are ignorant of cultural landscape and historical land narrative, are visiting the ancestral tribal areas of Cedar Mesa which include a plethora of ancestral Pueblo sites and Navajo sites including areas the Utes, Hopi and Zuni still use as ceremonial sites today.

Complete mural with building owner, myself, Venaya Yazzie and community member

Shash Jaa and the nearby communities of natural environments and Indigenous sites are precious and are considered "sacred sites" which remain unguarded by wayward visitors and "pot hunters" looking for items to take and sties to plunder.  This is the truth about the many infamous activities and have and continue to take place daily.

I was happy to create this mural with a message to that people visitors will see it and ingest it into their psyche - taking this message of visiting with respect with them wherever they roam.  I personally think that this will give awareness of the land as a living space and also that the area's cultural narrative is vital to living a good life.

For the Indigenous people and tribes as a whole, the land near Shash Jaa is sacred.  There is great reverence to such places here on our ancestral homelands.  We live to respect the land and in turn the land respects us.  This epistemology is rooted in our DNA, we are the land and we will never leave it.

Blessings in all things,

Venaya J. Yazzie, 2021

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