Franciscan Villa Child Care Center - Indoor Mural
May 2025- South Milwaukee, WI
Cinder block walls are honest. Sturdy, practical, built to last. But for a room full of kids burning energy and using their imaginations all day, plain white cinder block isn't exactly inspiring. It's just there. A boundary. Walls that say "this is where the space ends" and not much else.
Franciscan Villa had just expanded. The new indoor play space was exactly what the kids needed, room to move, run, and just be kids. But the walls needed to catch up to the energy the room was built to hold.
This became the largest indoor childcare mural I've painted to date. That's not a small thing to say out loud.
We wrapped roughly 75% of the room in a single continuous scene, kids playing outside, open skies, the kind of landscape that pulls from Milwaukee's own backyard. The lakefront trail, the greenery, the natural textures that make this city feel alive in the summer. The goal was simple: walk into this room and forget you're inside. Feel the breeze even when there isn't one.
When a mural wraps a room at that scale, something shifts. The walls stop being boundaries and start being part of the experience. Kids aren't just playing in a room anymore. They're playing in a scene. And that scene was designed specifically for them, pulled from the same parks and trails and lakeside paths they'll grow up exploring right outside.
This is part one. The outdoor mural on the second story exterior is the complement to this piece, two murals, one vision, a building that tells a full story from the inside out.
