Guthrie Miller
Following a contentious public hearing in City Council chambers on Tuesday, the city's Historical Districts Review Board upheld a ruling that a wheat paste mural installed on a Camino Lejo property by Navajo artist Remy in January must come down. Homeowner Guthrie Miller had appealed the earlier decision.
The issue, according to the H-Board, was not the content of the mural—which depicts Israeli soldiers terrorizing Palestinian children and families. The problem it said, was rather the architectural standards set forth by city code, namely that public-facing structures must exist in harmonious design with the overall neighborhood in terms of aesthetic, materials and color scheme.
Still, some argued that the existing code as it applies to public art in Miller's eastside district home is unclear.
"One of the most interesting things is that [the board] didn't have the precise language to rely upon," says Orien LongKnife (San Carlos Apache, Gros Ventre and Chippewa Cree), the secretary of the Red Nation Santa Fe Freedom Council, who also commented at the hearing. "I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised: it's Santa Fe."
According to Historic Preservation Division Manager Lisa Roach, there is truth to concerns over a lack of code clarity.
"What has happened is that our code is so open to interpretation that both the [city] staff and the H-Board have, despite their best efforts to try and support mural arts in Santa Fe, a hard time making consistent decisions that do feel supportive of arts in Santa Fe," Roach tells SFR. "It's hard for me to speak on behalf of the whole city, but we're speaking internally about how to better handle requests for mural arts."
The director of the newly founded Santa Fe Arts and Culture Department Pauline Kamiyama agrees, adding that "public art, in all of its forms, contributes to our community's vibrancy and tells parts of our story—it is with those values in mind that we are focused on working in partnership with our Historic Preservation Office to craft policy-based solutions that will address the need for greater flexibility and inclusion in the planning and development of these stories."
For now, however, Roach says the city sent a letter to Miller today reiterating the ruling and giving him 10 days to remove the mural except for a 3-by-5-inch section for which Miller obtained a signage permit.
Miller says he's disappointed by the ruling.
"As usual, there's only one value here—the capitalist value," he tells SFR. "I admire where Remy is coming from, it's a question of what's really important here, and when do we stand up for what we believe?"
Miller says the vast majority of passers-by have voiced support for the mural, and believes the vocal majority who spoke against its content at the hearing are "cowardly."
"I don't admire when you just want your property values to go up and [your neighborhood] to be quiet," he explains. "With everything happening in the world—a trillion dollars for the military, teaching the values of violence and domination—for people to retreat is really saying 'I want to have the value of my property, I don't care for the rest of you.'"
All of that aside, Roach once again says the mural's content did not play a part in the ruling.
"It's really difficult to have a discussion about artwork without talking about content," she says, "but I feel the board did a good job of sticking to applying and interpreting the code."
Miller lawyer, Jeff Haas, tells SFR that his client's next steps will be compliant.
"I think we have to figure out exactly what to do, I don't know that we want to defy the ruling and face the possibility of criminal charges or fines, but we want to keep the message up and keep the public outcry for public art," says Haas, also a member of a group called Santa Feans for Justice in Palestine.
For some, the decision was welcome news. According to Rabbi Berel Levertov of the Santa Fe Jewish Center Chabad, who jokingly commented at the public hearing that he'd like the mural to stay up so he might plan and execute his own for his downtown center, "I'm pleased by the ruling because we're all abiding by these codes and that's what's keeping Santa Fe nice and beautiful."
"It's good to have freedom of speech," he continues, "and I've spoken to Guthrie [Miller] and we're supposed to be getting together to discuss further ideas to bring out a nice dialogue, but I'm still disappointed by the fact that some Native Americans have misconstrued the history and the facts and are sympathizing with Palestinians because they feel connected to a certain land when the exact opposite is the truth. The Jews are the natives of Israel."
As for Remy himself, he tells SFR by phone from Washington, DC that he's still processing news of the ruling.
"I guess we'll take it under advisement," he says, "but they're dealing with street art here and rules don't really apply. I just think this gives us parameters through which we can look at certain things—but I'm never about asking for permission."
Remy, whom SFR interviewed in January, says he taught members of The Red Nation how to make their own wheat paste murals during an action on Miller's property earlier this month. He describes the possibilities for more street art projects as "the tip of the iceberg."
"They have those skills now, and I want to ask Santa Fe, the city, the mayor—where do you think this is going to go?" he says. "What's the ultimate goal here? What's the outcome? The more they talk, the more it shows their racism."
Roach, from the Historic Preservation Division, meanwhile says that change is in the air. She's recently received funding to better implement long-range planning for the department, and further says she'd be thrilled to have Native voices as part of the process.
"We're at a critical moment where our community is changing to be more people focused," she says.
