Created as part of the Native Mural Wall for the 2020 Eureka Street Art Festival
17’ x 19’
Melitta Jackson made Run as part of the 2020 Eureka Street Art Festival. Jackson, a Yurok Tribal member, depicts an Indigenous girl running in the sand alongside the water, toward the dense green forest. She is participating in Ch’ilwa:l (Flower Dance), a coming-of-age ceremony for girls of the Hoopa, Yurok, Karuk, Wiyot and Tolowa tribes. In this ceremony, the girl must run in front of the other children and cannot stop to play with them. Instead, she must continue running forward, which signifies growing out of childhood and following her own path. Run also has deeper meanings regarding Jackson’s experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. While painting this in 2020, Jackson said she was “taking this time for self-reflection as (she) did when going through this ceremony”. Though life can be difficult, we must continue to move forward.Run is Jackson’s first mural and was created as part of the Native Mural Project. This project began during the 2020 Eureka Street Art Festival as a collaborative effort between Native artists, the Native Cultures Fund, a committee of local Native leaders, the Humboldt Area Foundation and ESAF. Run is featured alongside the work of three other Native artists on the same wall to create one large mural.
