Mural Gallery

How does one do commissioned murals for the best children's hospital for cancer in the world?

When my son was an infant and I was a stay-at-home mom at 29 years young, while my then husband worked as a mechanic, I took full advantage of being able to flex my artistic passions. 

But, I was also wanting to connect more with people as I felt isolated as stay-at-home mom.

With my baby and stroller in tow, I walked to the community center around the corner and asked if they needed an oil painting instructor, for free of course. 

I happened to walk in when the seniors were having their acrylic/watercolor studio time. They told me the center didn't permit oil painting because of the fumes. So, invited them to my home studio where I said I'd teach them for free how to oil paint. 

Sure enough, they showed up. After a few months of twice-a-week classes, I had a group of four people that had amassed a beautiful collection of rendition oil paintings of their favorite artists' work. 

Sitting in my living room one night, I thought to myself, "I have to do something with this work" (I had never had a gallery showing before this other than high school). 

I opened up the phone book and started calling all the galleries from A-Z. No one was interested. But I finally got to "U" and reached out to Urban Art Commission. 

A woman, Danita Beck, said she'd like to come out and visit my studio to see the work. 

She ended up displaying the entire collection at Shelby County Board of Commissions Executive Suites for two years. That's how I landed on the Memphis art map. 

It generated a lot of interest in my work. Tran Bui asked if I would do a televised interview for her Get Smart Report and I got a segment on the evening news for Channel 24. This led to me growing professionally very quickly in the Memphis art community. 

I exhibited all over the place and participated in volunteer murals and other beautification projects.

Danita was impressed with my ambitions, and connected me with Claudio Perez Leon, CEO and Founder of Art Impact, the amazing architect and artist that designed 17,000+ square feet of murals for St. Jude as well as other huge installations. I remember going to his house for my first interview where he asked me to draw. I sat and illustrated, he asked a few questions, then said he'd be in touch. Soon thereafter, he invited me for another interview and said  he would give me shot. 

I was hired. However, that didn't necessarily mean I had the job. I had to find a sitter for my year-old son. Once that was accomplished, I drove to St. Jude, went to human resources, was given my "engineering" pass to wear while working, hardly work I have to say. 

With my brushes in hand, and paint clothes on, I got in the elevator and went up to the second floor. 

When the doors opened it was like a ghost town. I stepped out into the wide hallway where colorful murals greeted everyone. It felt like a dream. I couldn't believe I was standing in St. Jude about to paint murals. It was mixed emotions as I had to leave my son, but was doing the most important work of my life.

I started wandering around looking for the project manager. When we finally met, she told me that she knew I had talent if Claudio sent me, but more importantly that it was necessary for me to be able to paint in the style that Claudio designed for the mural, for consistency. 

I was given the task of painting a stone bridge around a large curved hall entrance. We were used an application called dry-brush technique, which I was familiar with. She said I had to prove myself and if I did a decent job that she'd allow me to return the next day to try again. 

I did well enough because as spent the next several months painting murals at St. Jude and at another hospital for a new children's wing, working 5 - 6 days a week, up to 8+ hours a day.

We had five artists on the Art Impact team. Each artist was designated to paint a certain aspect of the murals. One person did the mechanical and linear elements like cars and buildings, one painted portraiture and animals, and two others did natural settings and landscape features like sky, trees, clouds, flowers, hills, and you guessed it, stone bridges. 

In a few months, I painted over 15,000 square feet of sky, clouds, hills, flowers and trees and also touched up murals on the first floor from a previous mural company. 

I often stopped to chat with patients, families, and staff as everyone was curious about the art and we talked about nearly everything else under the sun.

I had a life-threatening illness as a child, and although it wasn't cancer, I knew what those children and families needed from me besides murals. They needed genuine, light-hearted smiles, healthy distraction, active listening, and sometimes just acknowledgment.

The thing I became known for was, of all things, my sneakers. Each Monday I'd go in with a new painted design on my sneaks. I'd create a whole new theme on them each week. From polka dots, to zebra pattern, to gold toed sparkles, to two different color sneakers like purple and blue. Each Monday everyone waited to see what the big reveal would be. 

Sadly, I missed huge milestones with my son. First steps, first words, it was more than I could bare, so I made one of the toughest decisions of my life... to stop working at my dream job. 

Years later I realized, looking back at the work I had done there, that when the doctors medicine didn't work, the mural medicine worked until near the very end for those children who succumbed to their battle. The purpose of those murals was what is referred to as 'escapism.' It took the kids, their families, the staff, outside the walls of a difficult reality to a different place they hoped for or just liked to imagine.

When our family moved to a larger house, there, I painted nearly all the walls top to bottom with murals. A giant rendition in our den of Gauguin's La Orana Maria, reminding me of where I wanted to beat the time, Maui, Hawai`i. Also painted a few Matisse murals, and other original murals in my childrens' rooms of the themes they picked. My daughter chose white wolves in a night sky with a full moon and snow drifts. My son wanted green lightning bolts, race cars, a cheeseburger and, at five years old, he even colored all over the wall and we kept it. 

I eventually shifted into doing solo commissioned mural projects that fit my family's  needs. One was a large commissioned mural at my son's elementary school in  Mississippi still there after twenty years! 

In 2009, my small family finally made the big move to Maui.  I divorced a year after our arrival and spent the next nine years as a single mom on Maui and switched focus to going back to college to get my BA in psychology, which I did, all the while having dozens of surgeries.

Now, having come full circle, I returned with my young adult son to Tennessee. Medical illness took me off Maui permanently, but I have been able to receive the treatment I need. 

Life is so unexpected. I wasn't prepared for illness, or the healing journey after coming so close to losing my life. Having gone through all that, it has profoundly shifted my perspective and priorities.

I graduated with a B.A. in psychology in 2019, in between transplants, and was interested in art therapy. But with continuing medical obstacles and maintenance, getting my masters was no longer viable. Nonetheless, with a new lease on life, I am once again a full-time artist and art teacher.

Currently, I am interested in Special Education and securing a grant that would afford me to bring clay arts to special ed kids on a regular basis.

I have a lot of irons in the fire right now, but, here in Fall 2024, with two surgeries coming up, I am ready to put all the pieces of the puzzle together to attempt obtaining a grant to fulfill this goal. During recovery, I will sit at my computer, putting it all together. Last time I was recovering in between transplants, I wrote a 300,000 word movie series, but that's another story entirely.

However, for 2025, as I have yet to write the grant, and having recently been hired at an amazing place as kiln manager and clay teacher that allows flexibility, there is still room on my plate for new projects.

So there you have it. 

It's a long read, but I hope in some way it inspired you.

A mural mentor group project for Buddhist Learning Center in Maui, Hawai`i. Members placed sticker lettering on it after completion to reflect their philosophy, upcoming goals and events.  It is one of two mural projects I helped lead for a youth mentoring program.. The other mural is on the second floor of the center and covers and entire wall top to bottom. It was a much longer, evolving project.