Black Walnut Chisme Mural.
A Mural Celebrating the Threatened Los Angeles Black Walnut Tree.
Client: Coyotl + Macehualli
Location: El Sereno, Los Angeles
Year: 2026
Role: Lead Artist
Medium: Acrylic on mural cloth
Project Type: Site-Specific Community Mural
The Project
Black Walnut Chisme is a site-specific ceiling mural created for the entrance to Coyotl + Macehualli, a community lending library in El Sereno. Installed overhead, the mural transforms a transitional architectural space into an immersive image of the native ecology of Northeast Los Angeles.
Research & Concept
The mural takes the Southern California black walnut (Juglans californica) as the center of a larger ecological community. Native to the region and increasingly threatened by habitat loss and development, the tree provides food and habitat for numerous species.
The composition brings together the black walnut with animals and insects connected to the local environment, including the California scrub jay, mockingbird, California towhee, western gray squirrel, bumblebee, and monarch butterfly. Rather than depicting the tree in isolation, the mural presents the landscape as a network of relationships between plants, animals, and place.
Design & Production
Because the mural occupies a ceiling rather than a conventional wall, the composition was designed to be experienced from below and while moving through the entrance. Branches, leaves, fruit, birds, insects, and other forms spread across the overhead surface, creating a field of imagery rather than a single fixed viewpoint.
The mural was painted in acrylic on mural cloth and installed onto the ceiling, allowing the work to be developed separately before being integrated into the architecture of the space.
The Result
Black Walnut Chisme turns the entrance to the lending library into a small encounter with the ecology of the surrounding region. Visitors pass beneath a canopy of plants and wildlife before entering the library, connecting the interior community space to the living landscape outside it.
The project reflects a broader approach to public art in which research, local ecology, and the particular character of a site become the basis for visual storytelling.
Black Walnut Chisme mural featuring California black walnut tree and native wildlife
Los Angeles environmental mural depicting endangered black walnut habitat
Mural of California black walnut tree and local fauna
Public art celebrating Southern California native ecology
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I work with cultural organizations, schools, nonprofits, businesses, and civic partners to develop murals rooted in the histories, communities, and environments of a place.