The University of Colorado Boulder unveiled a new mural at its School of Education building on Tuesday created by Indigenous artist Danielle SeeWalker.

Vibrant purples, blues, greens and yellows highlight the people, hummingbirds, flowers and other symbols featured in the mural. The mural is called Wóinila, meaning “in silence we learn.” It’s meant to embody the importance of lifelong learning outside traditional educational institutions.

“This mural is called Wóinila, which means learning in silence and learning outside of four walls,” SeeWalker said. “It’s learning by being out in nature, listening to the wind, listening to the water, listening to your ancestors and gaining that knowledge. It’s the first value as Lakota people that we learn out of our different values and virtues that we’re taught.”

SeeWalker is Hú?kpap?a Lak?óta and a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota. She’s a Denver-based fine artist, writer, muralist and activist. Her work can also be found in the downtown Denver area, Empower Field, the Denver Indian Center and the Denver Zoo.

She partnered with the CU Boulder School of Education and the student-led CU Boulder Cultural Events Board to create the mural.

“It was super cool to see the way everyone’s feedback and everything they wanted to see in the mural was incorporated,” CU Boulder student Naisha Naik said. “I think it’s really nice and important to have native representation throughout our campus because we are on Indigenous land.”

SeeWalker completed two murals on campus for the engineering building a couple of years ago before returning to CU Boulder last month to create one for the School of Education.

“This mural is not just a beautiful piece of art,” CU Boulder student Angela Lujan said. “I believe it holds a more powerful message.”SeeWalker said the mural’s bold, simplistic style is inspired by ledger art, which was a way through a narrative art form for the Lakota people to document their history before their written language was created. The entire mural is a mirror image, symbolism for a native philosophy that everything is a mirror. One example is the idea that people come from the stars, live on Earth and will return to the stars.

“If somebody is just walking by and is excited about the colors and the brightness it brings to the hallway, that’s awesome,” SeeWalker said. “If somebody stops and takes a look at what it is and what it represents and tries to interpret things from it and something resonates with them, I think that’s awesome as well.”

The mural is about 25 feet by 10 feet and SeeWalker finished it in about four days. Conversations surrounding plans for the mural began last summer. She’s made it a point in her career to create art in and for schools from elementary to the university level.

“Having that representation and having something that an Indigenous student can walk by and connect with — I feel like if I had that, it would’ve given me a better self-confidence level, and I would’ve felt more part of the community, welcomed, seen and heard,” she said. “That’s what I want for this mural and all my murals, really.”