Grab a Brush! Mural Celebrates Sustainability at UC Davis

Article updated Feb. 18 and April 16.

Grab a paintbrush and help bring a new campus mural celebrating sustainability at UC Davis to life during two community painting days on April 16 and 17 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. (previously Feb. 19 and 20). Everyone is welcome to participate. No art experience is required, just a willingness to jump in and get a little paint on your hands.

The mural is located on the side of a temporary utility building in central campus, west of Wickson Hall and across the street from Asmundson Hall (near the corner of California Ave. and N. Quad). The building houses mechanical equipment critical to the completion of the Big Shift, a large-scale construction project that lays the groundwork for reducing UC Davis’ reliance on fossil fuels by 80% when complete.

What you’ll be painting

Sheep Shift: Endless Possibilities is the winning mural design by Kimberly Morales Mcmullen, a student artist double-majoring in cinema and digital media and design. The design celebrates one of UC Davis’ most ambitious carbon reduction efforts — the Big Shift — through one of its most beloved and visible symbols: the Sheepmowers. Positioned at the heart of the mural, the sheep represent creative, living solutions to campus care and carbon reduction, embodying the spirit of the Big Shift project.

Radiating outward like are flowing bands of vibrant color that connect the Sheepmowers to a wider ecosystem of sustainability in action:  greenhouse gas reductions, students biking across campus, the Arboretum Waterway Flood Protection and Habitat Enhancement project, native plants, animals that support biodiversity, and our community actively engaging with the landscape around them.

The mural also includes a community-created poem submitted by "Julia D." as part of the Sheep Shift Climate Poetry project. The poem illustrates how large-scale infrastructure investments and everyday choices are deeply interconnected, working together to create a more resilient, sustainable future for UC Davis.

Why this mural and why here?

The mural is part of a creative engagement effort connected to the Big Shift.

Several years ago, during a Big Shift team conversation, Alan Suleiman of UC Davis Design and Construction Management made an off-the-cuff remark about the potential for a mural on the temporary utility building that houses key mechanical equipment for the project. While the idea wasn’t formalized at the time, it stuck.

"When so much of the Big Shift is happening underground, it can be hard for people to really see or connect with the work," said Katie Hetrick, assistant director for Finance, Operations and Administration Communications. "When the idea of a mural came up, it felt like an opportunity to celebrate this project above ground and to invite the campus community into the story."

Hetrick reached out to Haven Kiers, associate professor in the Department of Human Ecology and principal investigator of the UC Davis Sheepmowers project, to explore how the idea could become reality.

"The Sheepmowers already spark curiosity and conversation wherever they go," Kiers said. "They’ve grazed near Wickson Hall in the past, so connecting them to this location and to a project as significant as the Big Shift felt like a natural way to engage people around campus sustainability."

Supported by a grant from the ASUCD Arts Committee, Kiers and Hetrick launched the Sheep Shift mural contest. The contest invited the campus community to take part, not just as observers of a major infrastructure project, but as active participants in telling its story. The winning mural received approval from our campus's Art in Public Places committee. Now the time is here to paint it!

Be part of it

Pick up a paintbrush and help transform a temporary infrastructure building into a shared expression of UC Davis values — sustainability, creativity and collective action.

Whether you paint for five minutes or the whole afternoon, your contribution becomes part of a campus story that will be seen by thousands. (Registration for these events is currently full.)