These work examples demonstrate how my public art practice approaches visible mending by creating opportunities for participation, connection, learning, and shared authorship. Each project explores how public art can foster belonging, strengthen relationships between artists, neighborhoods, and communities before, during, and long after the artwork is complete.
Work Samples:
TED + Posca Residency
William Ramsay REcreation Center Murals
Lobby & dance Studio
Designing Community Participation to Inform Public Art
For the William Ramsay Recreation Center in Alexandria, Virginia, I designed and facilitated a community-engaged mural process that invited residents of all ages to help shape two permanent public murals before a single brushstroke was painted. Instead of relying on a traditional presentation or feedback session, I developed a series of multilingual engagement experiences that offered multiple ways to participate based on each person's interests, comfort level, and available time.
I design flexible systems of participation that create multiple entry points into the artistic process, allowing ideas to emerge through conversation, creative thinking, observation, storytelling, and visual exploration.
Participants explored preliminary mural concepts, contributed to visual surveys, responded to creative writing and storytelling prompts, created original drawings, completed artist-designed coloring activities inspired by cultural traditions, and shared reflections about belonging, friendship, movement, and recreation. Each activity was intentionally designed to gather meaningful insight while creating an engaging and welcoming experience. Engagement opportunities were adapted to meet participants where they were, incorporating multilingual materials and translation support to help ensure more residents could meaningfully participate.
The ideas, themes, and observations collected through these activities directly informed the evolving mural designs, ensuring the finished artwork reflected the experiences, values, and voices of the people who use the recreation center every day. Community members who contributed to the design process were also invited to sign a permanent recognition plaque, creating a lasting record of the community's role in shaping the murals and reinforcing a shared sense of ownership. This project demonstrates my approach to community engagement as both a creative practice and a research methodology—transforming participation into lasting public art.
This project is in progress. Community engagement is scheduled through August 8, 2026. Final mural designs based on community engagement will be approved and mural install will begin mid-to-late August 2026.
“My contribution mattered.”
People want to be seen and heard.
Community engagement highlights for William Ramsay Recreation Center murals project, 2026.
Color the Curb: School safety program
Arts in the right-of-Way, Washington DC
Elementary student curriculum highlights for the Color the Curb: School Safety Program grant, 2025.
Teaching Elementary Students to See Themselves as Public Artists
For Maury Elementary School in Washington, DC, I developed and facilitated a three-part, tiered learning curriculum for two cohorts of third-grade students exploring the many roles of public art. Students learned how murals tell community stories, how artists translate small sketches into large-scale artwork, and how curb extension murals are traffic calming and can improve safety for pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers. The curriculum culminated in students researching, designing, and creating imagery for two permanent curb extension murals in their neighborhood.
As Lead Artist for the FY2025 Color the Curb: School Safety Program, I led a team of muralists which translated community research, student drawings, and neighborhood observations into two permanent public artworks. The project was funded with a $30,000 project grant by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (CAH) through the Color the Curb: School Safety Program, a partnership between CAH, the District Department of Transportation, and DC Public Schools.
I believe public art can become a classroom where students discover that their ideas, observations, and creativity have the power to shape the places they live. Rather than beginning with predetermined imagery, students became the project's creative researchers. They investigated local ecology, neighborhood identity, and environmental stewardship through observation, discussion, drawing, and creative problem-solving. Inspired by ecosystems surrounding trees, wildlife, nearby Kingman Island and the Anacostia River, their ideas directly informed the final mural designs, ensuring
the completed artwork reflected the voices of the young people who use these streets every day.
By placing student voices at the center of the creative process, the project transformed public art into an opportunity for civic learning, creative confidence, and neighborhood pride. The completed murals demonstrate how arts education can empower students to become active contributors to the communities they call home.
Permanent curb extension murals were installed at two intersections through the FY2025 Color the Curb School Safety Grant at Maury Elementary School in Washington, DC. This project completed in September 2025.
Community Coloring Book, Volume II
Anacostia Murals Fest ‘26
Expanding Public Art Through Collaborative Storytelling
The Anacostia Murals Fest Community Coloring Book is a collaborative publication I created to expand how artists and communities engage with public art. Across its first two volumes, I invited more than 100 participating muralists to contribute, with 42 artists featured in the second volume through original coloring pages, artist reflections, biographies, and mural locations. I developed and led the publication's editorial vision, artist outreach, artwork collection, publication design, written content, and production, transforming a temporary mural festival into a free educational resource that continues serving the community long after the festival concludes.
The most enduring public art doesn't end with the mural, it invites people into the creative process through new opportunities for participation and self-guided exploration. I intentionally designed an interactive publication that elevates the voices and creative practices of participating muralists while inviting readers to become active participants themselves.
This is not a traditional exhibition catalog.
Each artist creates an original line drawing based on their completed mural, accompanied by a personal reflection and the story behind the artwork. In turn, every coloring page invites someone else to interpret, complete, and respond to that mural through their own creativity. The publication transforms public art from something people simply observe into something they experience, learn from, and reinterpret through creative participation. The publication culminates with a single community reflection and drawing activity that invites readers to become artists themselves, encouraging them to observe their neighborhood, illustrating places that are meaningful to them, and imagining what they hope to see in their own neighborhoods.
Functioning as both a community coloring book and a public art guide, the publication encourages residents, families, educators, and visitors to explore neighborhoods throughout Washington, DC, discover the stories behind the murals, and build deeper connections with the artists and communities they represent. Created as a permanently free community resource, it removes financial barriers to participation, allowing classrooms, libraries, community organizations, families, and individuals to explore public art through creativity, storytelling, and hands-on learning.
By creating a platform that elevates fellow muralists while inviting community members to become creative participants, the Community Coloring Book demonstrates how publications can extend the impact of public art through arts education, accessibility, storytelling, and shared creative experiences, strengthening connections between artists, neighborhoods, and the communities they serve.
Published in August 2026, Volume II features artwork and reflections from artists who participated in the 2026 Anacostia Murals Fest (May), extending the festival through creativity, storytelling, and community participation.
Click the image to download
the AMF26 Community Coloring Book, Vol II
via Dropbox