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Like the women she paints, this Utah artist has overcome personal difficulty in making a career for herself

A Dakota woman in traditional dress sits in front of Mount Timpanogos holding a violin. In front of her are pages of the 1913 opera she wrote in Utah, celebrating the sun dance. A red bird flies behind her, representing the meaning of her name — Zitkala-Sa.

Brooke Smart, the Bluffdale illustrator who created the portrait, painted the American Indian advocate and writer gazing into the surrounding wilderness. She liked the idea of Zitkala-Sa “looking beyond and being inspired by the places she’s in,” she said. “She was constantly inspired, then inspired other people with her music and the speeches that she would give.