MEET THE ARTISTS
​Steph and Kamryn met in 2017 on the Longest Walk 5.2, a Native-led prayer walk from San Francisco to DC. Over the five months on the walk their friendship developed over many cups of coffee, many many miles of walking, and a deep, hearfelt desire to see the land return to its pre-Columbian roots.
In 2021 Steph began work on an illustration of a larger-than-life bison leaving San Francisco on the freeway, headed back to the Great Plains. The piece was inspired by a small herd, originally from the Wyoming/Montana area, who have been kept in the city’s Golden Gate Park since 1892.
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The illustration deeply inspired Kamryn and they began talking about putting the image on walls all the way back to Wyoming, sending the buffalo home. The talks grew into the Bison Migration Mural Collaborative and their first mural launched in Laramie in November 2024.​
(l-r) Kamryn, Steph at the Laramie mural launch
​Bios
Stephanie Dodaro
​Born and raised in San Francisco, Steph began long-distance walking as a way to connect to the land and history. In 2012 she mapped and walked an 800-mile route from Sonoma to San Diego, commonly known as El Camino Real, and wrote a free, online trail guide for the route. ​
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Steph is an occasional illustrator. She most recently worked as an outdoor educator in the SF/Marin Headlands and a volunteer for the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band’s native grassland restoration project on the California coast.
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Kamryn Merrill
Kamryn is a Speech Language Pathologist by trade but follows her passions: Environmental preservation and restoration, participation in Indigenous-led movements, and projects focused on community reclamation and restoration. This includes Indigenous food sovereignty, and cultural and language revitalization efforts.
Art has been a significant part of her upbringing and she believes in the power of art to move people and inspire change.
"Reverse Manifest Destiny," 2022, Stephanie Dodaro
Bison hand-illustrated in Procreate on Photoshopped Picture