The Town of Vail and artist Danielle SeeWalker saw very different messages in her painting G is for Genocide, sparking the abrupt cancelation of her long-planned artist residency.
VAIL, CO—On the morning of May 9, Denver-based artist Danielle SeeWalker received a phone call from Kathleen Halloran, the deputy town manager of Vail, Colorado. During their brief phone conversation, Halloran informed SeeWalker—a member of the Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta and citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota—that the Town of Vail had canceled her scheduled residency and mural project through their Art in Public Places program.
According to SeeWalker, Halloran told her that “residents in Vail are very upset about you being a political artist. We can’t have someone like you coming into our community with these messages.” When asked for comment, Halloran disagreed with the specific verbiage SeeWalker used to describe the conversation, but not the overall sentiment.
The message Halloran explicitly referred to was SeeWalker’s vocal stance against genocide, as it related to a painting she posted to her Instagram account on March 7, titled G is for Genocide.
The painting is a semi-abstract portrait of a woman situated front and center of the canvas on a drab green background. The artist painted the figure’s face in grayscale, devoid of features except for an open right eye. Abstract linework cuts across her face where a nose and mouth should be. A keffiyeh drapes over the woman’s head, while a black and gray feather rests atop her right ear. A featureless braid of monochromatic red hair falls over her left shoulder. It covers part of her garment, which displays a repeating pattern of abstract shapes that look like elk teeth.
The painting explores resonances between the extermination of Native Americans and the current conflict in Gaza (which, to date, has led to an estimated 35,000 Palestinian fatalities—many of them women and children).
“G is for Genocide was inspired by what my ancestors went through,” SeeWalker says. “I come from a history of genocide. From stolen land and stolen culture. Our languages were forbidden to be spoken; and our traditional ways of living—our dress, our hair, how we presented ourselves, how we practiced our cultures—were all forbidden until the [American Indian] Religious Freedom Act became law in the 1970s.”
“When looking at history,” SeeWalker continues, “all that has happened to my ancestors, the things that they had to go through, and the things they had to fight for—I can’t help but draw comparisons to the Palestinians’s forced removal from their indigenous lands.”
G is for Genocide “is about culture,” SeeWalker explains. “It’s about people trying to exist and reside in their homeland. But they’re being killed off, so [there are] parallels between the history of my ancestors and what’s happening [in Gaza].” The artist notes that the painting in question “is a single piece I created months ago; it seems like [Vail AIPP is] creating this identity of me as an artist” based on one artwork.
While SeeWalker’s identity as an artist is not predicated upon the crisis in Gaza, it is unabashedly political and rooted in the identity politics of marginalized people. Her current solo show at History Colorado Center titled But We Have Something to Say, focuses on “issues important to Indigenous peoples and communities… that illuminate censored and erased histories.” Moreover, the show’s programming notes that SeeWalker’s art attends to the “intersections of historical Native American society and modern culture,” fostering “a contemporary vision that elevates… dismissed or silenced histories.”
“Molly Eppard [the Coordinator of Vail’s AIPP program] came to the opening of But We Have Something to Say,” SeeWalker mentions. “The messaging in my artwork is clear. The board [of AIPP] was involved, and everyone knew my artwork and what it stood for.”
After months of planning, including a site visit and preparations for a mural project that the artist would have painted during her residency, SeeWalker received an email from Eppard on April 26 that said AIPP “will get the contract over to you by the beginning of next week for your mural/residency! We are all getting very excited.” No contract was delivered.
On May 6, SeeWalker received a text message from Eppard stating: “Call me as soon as possible. There’s an unfortunate situation we need to address with the residency.” A follow-up message stated: “It’s about your G is for Genocide print. The Jewish congregation in Vail is very upset.”
Their subsequent phone call, SeeWalker says, lasted mere minutes. When informed about the cancelation, the artist says she “tried to ask: What does ‘someone like me,’ and ‘too political’ mean? But I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.” In a request for comment, Halloran claims that SeeWalker ended the call on her own accord.
A statement posted on the town of Vail’s website on May 9 says that the cancelation stemmed from “the potential politicizing of the public art program,” and that the program did not want to use “public funds to support any position on a polarizing geopolitical issue.”
For her part, SeeWalker made no mention of painting a mural addressing Gaza. In fact, SeeWalker explained that she does not create concepts or designs for commissioned works until a contract is fully executed.
But Vail AIPP’s move to cancel SeeWalker’s residency in the face of public complaints seems to contradict the program’s stated objectives. In their 2023-2028 5-Year Strategic Plan and on their official website, the program claims that it’s seeking to “develop a diverse… art collection” and strives for “diversity in style… and artists.”
Furthermore, AIPP expresses a desire to “develop a strong public education effort in order to stimulate discussion and understanding about the visual arts.” It appears public discussion around SeeWalker’s visual art was shut down before it could begin.
Although AIPP chose to cancel her residency, SeeWalker remains determined: “I’m never going to regret or apologize for creating art. And I will continue to support students—locally and nationwide—that are standing against the events in Gaza at college campuses. But, really, moving forward, it’s onward and upward for me.”
With that said, the artist wonders “if Vail will give a person of color an opportunity to come and create in their community. Will they entertain having a Native American engage with them?” This is an especially pressing concern because, as SeeWalker says, “Vail built its economy on land stolen under treaty rights from the Ute tribe.”
The artist remains scheduled to speak at Vail Symposium on June 19 for an event titled Still Here: Redirecting the Native American Narrative. Vail Symposium is a nonprofit organization unaffiliated with the town’s government. It provides “educational programs for the Vail Valley community that are thought-provoking, diverse, and affordable.”
On May 14, the town of Vail updated its statement about the cancelation, apologizing for prematurely announcing the SeeWalker residency without a detailed proposal of her mural or a fully executed contract. They also publicly offered to reimburse the artist for expenses she incurred during her preparations. But the statement concludes with a vague and unsubstantiated insinuation that SeeWalker was “targeting” members of the Vail community.
Editor’s note:
During the reporting process for this story, Joshua Ware repeatedly requested comment from Vail town manager Russell Forrest, deputy town manager Kathleen Halloran, and coordinator of the Vail Art in Public Places program Molly Eppard. Halloran responded with the statements:
“We knew it would be a difficult conversation and can appreciate it was hard for Danielle as well. That said, we had a drafted statement that was released later in the day that we pulled from for this conversation and it did not include the words she is quoting.”
“While we can confirm the phone call was brief, this verbiage was not used and she was the one that chose to end the call.”
Ware also asked the city officials to connect him with members of the city’s Jewish community who had expressed concern about Danielle SeeWalker’s residency, and did not receive a response.
