Early Childhood Laboratory Mural

Image not taken straight on, but unskewed so proportions are off

There is a Mural on one of the buildings at the Center for Child and Family Studies. This mural moves from day to night, and human-world to insect-world, as it "reads" from left to right. The left-hand, "day" side of the mural involves families & children picnicking at the Early Childhood Center. As the viewer walks to the right, the sky darkens, and the entire scene becomes slowly magnified, until the insects roam at giant-size at midnight darkness in the garden. Nursery rhymes about insects are painted throughout the mural, alongside the appropriate bugs.

This mural was painted in the fall of 2006, by a group of student artists enrolled in Entomology 1: Art Science and the World of Insects. The lecture course was designed and taught by Diane Ullman and Donna Billick, co-directors of the Art-Science Institute at UC Davis.

The mural project was lead by artist Danielle Fodor, who helped the group of (primarily freshman) UCD students design the mural with a consensus-based, participatory design process. The UCD students decided to create a mural that focused on positive interactions between children and insects, while highlighting the center's cultural diversity, focus on family involvement, and nature in the urban environment. Students worked on the mural, rain or shine, to complete it in December 2006. Their names are listed on the lower left-hand side of the mural.