Niwot mural artist Jaycee Beyale

Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of stories on the four artists painting murals on walls in the Cottonwood Square Shopping Center-Jerry Sinor Building mural project, curated by Street Wise Arts.

Chief Niwot, leader of the Southern Arapaho tribe, is remembered for many honorable attributes - his bravery and wisdom, his mastery of multiple languages, and his great guidance and diplomacy. But most importantly, Chief Niwot is remembered for aspirations that his tribe could exist peacefully with the white settlers who moved onto and throughout the Arapaho territory.

In honor of the noble man for whom this town is named, one of the four new murals in town has his portrait by thirty-eight year old Narive American artist JayCee Beyale at its center. Beyale's natural tendency toward philosophy led him to integrate an incredible amount of forethought and symbolism into his art piece.

Two organizers of the mural project, Alex Chlebek and Bruce Warren, went on a trip last fall to the Sand Creek Massacre site where Chief Niwot was mortally wounded. "Afterward," Warren explained, "when we met with Leah [Brenner Clack] of Street Wise Arts and JayCee, we made it clear that we wanted the murals to reflect Chief Niwot's connection to this area. Since there are no known images of Chief Niwot, we talked to JayCee about creating art that would honor his legacy, and he produced this wonderful mural."

Beyale's mural features the artist's concept of a portrait of Chief Niwot that he decided on after researching Arapaho photo collections and making a compilation of characteristics in Adobe Photoshop.

While the mural may be greatly appreciated for its majesty and beauty alone, shedding light on its intent makes it all the more poignant. Along the south wall of the Jerry Sinor Building, the 40-feet-long by 8-feet-high mural represents the constant movement of the spirits around us because it's those ancestors who affect Beyale every day.

Chief Niwot's portrait exudes dignity and power. "I just wanted to present the Arapaho people in the best possible way, to honor and recognize them for their presence and as the stewards of the land," Beyale said.

"When I'm painting, I think of myself as a weaver," he said." So there's no disconnection from land, sky, and person. I'm trying to unify everything." Stand close and you can see the individual geometric pieces, but move back and they come together revealing the shading of Chief Niwot's features.

The rain clouds shaped like buffaloes are a tribute to the Arapaho people maintaining life in this area. Because there are so few buffalo left, the images represent their spirits living on in the clouds.

The sun medallion references a design often found in Arapaho women's quillwork and is another sign of movement, a signifier that nothing is constant in us or in the environment. "Movement just means life to me," Beyale said.

Asked what the creative process is like for him, Beyale explains, "It's kind of like a ceremonial process for me. I feel that with everything I create, it's a form of prayer. To me, a creative process no matter what you're doing, has a lot of power and strength to it. That's why I want to honor and respect it in myself and others as much as possible. It sounds flowery, but it's really what I'm aiming for - how do we make the world better?"

Beyale grew up on the fringes of the Navajo reservation in New Mexico. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico, with an emphasis in printmaking and studio arts.

"You mean like legitly?" Beyale responded when asked what his first mural was. In high school Beyale took to the underground world of art – graffiti on random stuff. In college he painted train cars. It was classic tagging, not intentional art. "But then I eventually realized I could do a lot more with my spray paint." Toward the end of college, portraits became his specialty.

He moved to Colorado Springs "trying to do art and work at the same time," but eventually put his art on the back burner while he managed a silkscreen and embroidery shop.

He said during the pandemic, he had an awakening, an existential reaction resulting in his creativity moving to the top again. He decided making money wasn't the pinnacle for him and loving what he was doing was pivotal to his soul. He moved to Boulder in 2020, carved out time for his art work and made connections through a job at the Dairy Arts Center (DAC).

But first there was one more unsanctioned mural –a portrait of a woman and butterflies. This one he hoped would bring him some attention on social media and would prove he could paint something larger than life and do it really well. With the help of Instagram posts of the mural, a bona fide opportunity came his way – an invitation to paint a mural on the back of a building in the RiNo Art District in early 2021.

His day job for the past year has been co-curating, facility management, and advertising and marketing for the DAC in Boulder while he helped get an organization called Creative Nations Art Collective (CNAC) off the ground. He recently stepped aside from the DAC role to continue down that path. The seed that started CNAC began in late 2020 with the mission being to provide opportunities and space for indigenous creative artists in collaboration with the DAC.

Since the Niwot mural was completed, Beyale has been working on four six-by-four-foot canvases for the upcoming second annual CNAC Indigenous Art Market at the DAC taking place October 8-9. His new pieces will focus on water conservation and the spiritual connection native people have to water. He tries to integrate water in each piece, with the buffalo clouds and lake in his Niwot mural doing just that.

Beyale said. "With my art, all I want to communicate is the current and contemporary view of an indigenous person. I can't speak for everyone when I do this, but I want people to remember and realize that native people are still a part of our society, and that we can be as competitive as others when it comes to art and we deserve a place and a space to do that."

Initially a little uneasy because the vast majority of Niwot's residents are white, Beyale came to see his mural as a celebration of Chief Niwot and indigenous people. He saw the mural as a way to bring about much needed healing and saw himself as the "vehicle to connect and make everything whole again, as much as possible." Being a descendent of a long line of traditional healers on his father's side, he comes by this inclination instinctively.

Onlookers may have thought Beyale was trespassing at first when he was pulling spray paints out of the back of his car and marking up the wall with fervor. At first no one spoke to him even when he would say hello. Eventually he said people began to interact and it gave him a complete sense of joy.

"The more I worked on this and was able to engage with some of the community members, I came to see that there's a larger purpose for me being here and doing this," Beyale said. "And that purpose was to provide some sense of background and history to people who do not know who Niwot is, who do not know what Sand Creek really is, who do not know the relationships of settlers with indigenous people and what that was like. It's so important."

To follow and connect with JayCee Beyale on instagram, search for jcbl1. To learn about Creative Nations Art Collective and the Indigenous Arts Market, visit http://www.creativenations.art.