This mural for the South Salt Lake Community Center Childcare Center sits at the intersection of my visual language, the constraints of the site and budget, and years of experience working with children in art contexts, including early-childhood Montessori classrooms. Designed with young children in mind but not overly nursery-specific, it takes the form of a mountain naturescape that unfolds through several connected scenes, using large shapes, bold lines, and a flowing composition to create an immersive environment rather than an image simply placed on a wall. The scenes trace different realms of our local nature and the ways they relate through the water cycle, populated by animal characters chosen for their relatability, so children, and the adults who share the space with them, can project themselves, or a parent or caregiver, onto the figures and narratives.

For this project I simplified my symbolic vocabulary further than usual. That's partly an aesthetic choice, but mainly one informed by experience: this kind of visual language holds children's attention and, in my experience, actively invites them to draw, interpret, and make their own art in response. Simplified imagery lowers the barrier to entry. It gives children a way into the work by letting them recognize symbols, imagine stories, and see the world translated into forms they feel free to respond to creatively, without needing specialized knowledge or permission. That accessibility also let the mural grow larger and more immersive within the available budget, and the loose, hand-drawn quality of the lines preserves an organic, human authenticity that's easy to lose in mural-making, a quality I find especially worth protecting in an era of AI-generated and corporate-washed imagery.

The color palette was selected to harmonize with the room's existing carpet, furniture, toys, and the trees visible through the windows, and the composition was designed to work with the toy layout while remaining flexible enough to hold future arrangements, or none at all. The mural brings playfulness, wonder, and imagination into a space where children ages 0 to 5 spend their days, and gives the adults who care for them new opportunities for conversation and storytelling with the characters and ecosystems now living on the walls.