screen painting at the creative alliance

This screen-painted mural was completed in 2014 with support from the Southeast CDC and the Painted Screen Society of Baltimore. The project was led by Nancy Scheinman of NS Studios and Elaine Eff, with design and painting support from myself and Hanna Moran of Red Swan Studios. This winning design, selected through a community competition, celebrates a beloved neighborhood tradition: the annual Great Halloween Lantern Parade and Día de los Muertos celebration in Patterson Park.

You can view the mural at the Creative Alliance. True to the tradition of Baltimore screen painting—a mid-century art form that provided privacy for first-floor rowhomes—the mural is only visible from the outside. From inside the building, the painted screen remains transparent, allowing a clear view outdoors while transforming the façade into a work of art.

Mural at belle grove elementary

This mural was completed in 2022 at Belle Grove Elementary in Brooklyn, MD, in the kindergarten and first-grade wing of the school. The design was shaped through input from teachers and school leadership, gathered via surveys and in-person conversations. Earlier that year, I also facilitated a mural workshop with the 5th grade class, which helped build relationships within the school community and explore how creative placemaking could bring new energy to their interior hallways.

cOMMUNITY MURAL WITH brush MURAL FEST

This 2024 community mural was created as part of Baltimore’s annual BRUSH Mural Fest, with the help of a dedicated team of volunteers who completed the painting in just five hours. I designed an accessible, graphic-style mural inspired by a vintage five-and-dime coupon book, paying homage to the site’s history as part of a bustling five-and-dime district, now called the Bromo Seltzer Arts District. The mural’s glowing, pastel color palette is inspired by the arts district’s logo and growing visual identity, with splashes of pinks, mint greens, and purples on adjacent walls. The area was once home to Antique Row, renowned department stores, artist galleries, furniture shops, and the beloved water ice and food stands of Lexington Market.

The mural is located along Howard Street, inside a parking lot on the side of a formerly vacant building—now transformed into a boutique home furnishings shop—serving as a tribute to the legacy and renewal of this historic neighborhood. Photography courtesy of BRUSH Mural Fest, by Peter Hoblitzell Photography.

Benjamin Franklin Highschool’s Family Center Mural

This delightful mural was done in partnership with The United Way to support the development of Benjamin Franklin's new Family Center. After meeting with the caretakers to see what books and toys the toddlers played with, we designed a mural incorporating familiar characters the children would recognize to enhance the positive energy in the space. Special thanks to Hanna Moran, Spectrum Design's studio manager, for leading the design effort. She put together a beautiful, charming mural that coordinated perfectly with both rooms and made everyone smile.

The Family Center allows current high school students to bring their young children to school every day to have in-house day care and after-school parenting lessons, allowing them to focus on their studies while learning about childcare. This program has and will continue to increase graduation and college-attendance rates. Spectrum Studio is very proud to have been a part of this new program, the first of its kind in Baltimore City.

Murals with Spectrum studio

From 2015 - 2018, I co-designed and painted murals with Spectrum Studio, an education-based mural collective that included illustrators and painters Mary Grace Corpus, Hanna Moran, and Lindy Swan. We primarily designed and painted murals at schools serving students with special needs for the Baltimore-based non-profit, The Children's Guild. Our goal was to reflect the diverse student body and the International Baccalaureate curriculum in the school’s environment, and celebrate the school’s civic engagement and social justice focus. In 2018, we parted ways to work on individual projects. I took a position at the Neighborhood Design Center to focus on public design and community development. At the same time, my fellow painters started a new mural studio called Red Swan - check out their new, beautiful mural work! Mary Grace Corpus’s incredible illustration work can be found @marygcorpus on instagram.