Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” — or, more specifically, one particular verse about endless skys and golden valleys and the song’s singalong chorus — is “often construed as unofficial national anthem,” said Cady Shaw, executive director of the Woody Guthrie Center.

“But until people come to the center and go through our exhibit, they often don’t realize that this was a questioning song,” she said. “Woody was very thoughtful in writing this song, because he was responding to (Irving Berlin’s) ‘God Bless America,’ and in many of the drafts of the lyrics, he’s asking the question, ‘Is this land made for you and me?’”

That phrase from an early version of Guthrie’s song is being used in what Shaw hopes will be a series of images by Indigenous artists, whose interpretations of Guthrie’s work and beliefs will be used in a range of merchandise.

The first of these images was officially unveiled this weekend as part of the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah. Designed by Keli Gonzales, the image is a stylized depiction of a landscape divided in half — one side showing a pristine vision of mountains and rivers, the other containing images of industry, from railroad tracks to oil wells.

“I’m a Woody Guthrie fan, and I knew that the song wasn’t intended to be this happy-go-lucky kind of thing,” Gonzales said. “At the same time, while in the song Woody addresses groups of marginalized people, he did not necessarily include Indigenous people.

“Also, many native people believe that you can’t own the land, but that we are a part of the land — the land is like a relative, our support system,” she said. “That got me thinking about how preserving and protecting the land is such a primary concern for native people, and the image I came up with grew from that.”

Gonzales’ original plan was to have the phrase “Is This Land Made for You and Me?” appear in several Indigenous languages, including Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Osage and Caddo.

“I thought it have greater meaning if I could show that this as being a sentiment of more than one person, or one tribe,” she said. “But I wasn’t able to get that done in time.”

Gonzales also created another image, of a fist adorned with Native tattoo that also includes the “Is This Land Made for You and Me?” statement, which will be available as a sticker.

Shaw said the idea behind this project is a result of the Center’s being “very cognizant of where we are. The Tulsa Arts District stands on unceded territories of several tribes, and that is something we note in our land acknowledgement and in our community activities.

“As a member of a native community (Shaw is a member of the Choctaw Nation), I know that there are many native artists whose work touches on the themes Woody was addressing in this song, and I thought it would be good for us to provide those artists with a way to offer a different perspective.”

Gonzales, who lives in the Tahlequah area, said she learned at an early age that art was both a way to express and communicate ideas, as well as a way to forge a connection with her culture.

“I’ve been able to meet with Cherokee people from all over the country through my art, and that makes me very happy,” she said. “Still, it is a little weird to realize that something I’ve created in now going to be displayed and sold at a place as internationally known as the Woody Guthrie Center. But it’s a good kind of weird.”