Zitkála-Šá (“Red Bird”)

Wabash Walls Art. Zitkála-Šá (“Red Bird”) was born on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota on February 22, 1876. A member of the Yankton Dakota Sioux, she was raised by her mother after her father abandoned the family. When she was eight years old, Quaker missionaries visited the reservation. They took several of the children (including Zitkála-Šá) to Wabash, Indiana to attend White’s Indiana Manual Labor Institute. Zitkála-Šá left despite her mother’s disapproval. At this residential school, Zitkála-Šá was given the missionary name Gertrude Simmons. She attended the Institute until 1887. She was conflicted about the experience and wrote both of her great joy in learning to read and write and to play the violin, as well as her deep grief and pain of losing her heritage by being forced to pray as a Quaker and cut her hair. Tristan Eaton is perhaps best known for his large-scale public murals, found throughout the world from New York to Paris to Shanghai, which he executes in freehand spray paint; a technical and personal nod to his own history and respect for graffiti culture, while honoring traditional painting and muralism with his thoughtful and dynamic subject matter and compositions. After graduating from the School of Visual Arts in New York, Eaton built upon his experience designing toys at the age of 18 for Fisher Price and co-founded the legendary Kid Robot. There, he created two of its most iconic designs, the Dunny and Munny, solidifying himself as one of the founders of the designer toy movement. www.tristaneaton.com