On one side of the delicate ornament, Leyonah Endischee painted swirling white sweeps of snow blanketing the redrock landscape of southern Utah.
Each swipe of her brush coated the clear glass globe in color, creating a scene she has witnessed many times while growing up in Aneth on reservation land. In the center, Endischee added a Navajo woman wearing a traditional dress and gathering wood.
“I was trying to show how beautiful Utah is and how we always go back home,” the 15-year-old said.
Endischee, a student at Whitehorse High in nearby Montezuma Creek, was one of a handful of teens at her school chosen to create ornaments this year to be displayed across from the White House in Washington, D.