Join us to bring a mural to life on campus!
The winning design of the Sheep Shift mural contest is being painted on the side of a temporary utility building located in central campus, west of Wickson Hall and across the street from California Hall.
In late January and early February, a muralist will lay out the design in a paint-by-numbers style, dividing the mural into sections and labeling each section with the color it should be painted. Once the design has been laid out, community members will be invited to paint in the mural on Feb. 19 and 20, between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Participate in Community Painting Days
Drop by on Thursday, Feb. 19 or Friday Feb. 20 between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. to grab a paintbrush and help paint the Sheep Shift mural. Be sure to wear clothes you don’t mind getting paint on!
What is Sheep Shift?
What happens when you combine paint, poetry, campus sheepmowers, and our groundbreaking decarbonization effort? A mural contest like no other.
Sheep Shift – a Mural Celebrating UC Davis Sustainability is a creative public art and education project supported by a grant from the Associated Students of UC Davis (ASUCD) Arts Committee. This three-phase community engagement project blends environmental awareness, poetic expression, and collaborative mural-making.
Project Phases
Spring 2024: Climate Poetry with Sheepmowers
UC Davis’ Sheepmowers — our sustainable lawn care team — grazed around the future mural site wearing stenciled climate-related words. Observers turned these shifting word combinations into original poems. Read the poems here.
Summer 2025: Mural Design
Student, faculty, staff and alumni artists were invited to design a mural inspired by the submitted "Sheep Shift" poetry and climate change, in particular UC Davis’ Big Shift — our ambitious campus decarbonization project. Over 30 entries were submitted and reviewed by a panel of judges, who selected for the design to be painted on campus.
Winter 2026: Community Mural Painting
The winning design will be transformed into a large-scale mural by the UC Davis community during a public paint-by-numbers event.