On Monday, February 23rd, a local Seattle artist’s 100-foot long paintings on the Wilson Pacific School campus in Wallingford were vandalized.

After 12 years of hard work completing the murals, Andrew Morrison, artist of the Native American murals, was crushed.

“This idea came to me in a dream 16 years ago in 2001. These walls were blank, there was nothing on them. I felt a compressing need to do art on them” Morrison said.

The paintings of Chief Sealth, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Joseph were spattered with graffiti. Morrison stated the school’s initial reaction was that of “confusion, revenge, and justice”. However, he felt that it would be best to take a peace approach. “Otherwise”, says Morrison, “it would be like throwing gasoline on a fire.”

“These murals represent Native American spirituality, tribal affiliation, there’s a picture of Chief Seattle, the namesake of the city,” Morrison said, according to Komo News.

Morrison’s murals are displayed on school campuses around the country, and was disappointed to see that a piece he had painted in his hometown was destroyed.

Morrison had attended the school as a child, and painted these as a gift to the community. The paintings are estimated to be valued at $130,000.

In an effort to preserve the art, architect John Paul Jones plans to visit the site to check the destruction.