At the end of each semester, dumpsters and curbs across campus are piled high with clothing, materials, and furniture discarded during the hectic move-out season. These perfectly good items end up in landfills, polluting our environment and harming native plants and animals (Donohue). How can public art encourage students to adopt more sustainable habits? My capstone project addresses this question via a sustainability-themed indoor mural for campus donation service, Terp-to-Terp. Through this project, I aim to increase the program’s visibility to students while advocating for environmental action to protect the vital ecosystems in Maryland.

Terp-to-Terp is a program on campus that runs donation drives to reduce the amount of clothing and supplies that end up in landfills. After this, they sort products and run a storefront for students to shop secondhand free of charge (Terp-to-Terp). It is important to use donation services like Terp-to-Terp because it reduces the effects of pollution and energy consumption on the health of the environment (Astoul). Through sustainability, everyone can do their part to help protect the environment, and this is what I aim to convey through my mural.

This piece is 5 and a half by 12 feet in 10 colors of latex wall paint. The design includes several native plants and animals emanating from two large hands, conveying that the health of the environment is in our hands. Preliminary research consisted of literature review, as well as email correspondence and meetings with several University of Maryland staff who were knowledgeable about public art on and off campus. The next steps were to brainstorm through thumbnail sketches and draft the piece digitally for submission to Resident Life, who oversee mural projects in dorms on campus. To get the piece on the wall, a grid was applied to both the digital piece and the wall to scale it up appropriately, which is a standard practice for murals and something that the artist has applied in previous work.