Martians of the Cities of First (Artist Alley Mural, Kokomo, Indiana)

8ft X 8ft 

Acrylic on Marine board

On Display in Artist's Alley, Downtown Kokomo from September 2025-August 2026 (Please message for buying and pickup information before purchase)

This mural bridges two places that have defined my life: Kokomo, Indiana—“City of Firsts”—and Starbase, Texas, a new frontier of firsts in space exploration. Elwood Haynes, riding a corn-built rocket toward Mars, recalls the inventive spirit of my hometown. Kokomantis and Old Ben drift through the scene as echoes of Kokomo’s lore, reimagined as cosmic myth. The work is also threaded with personal connections: my husband and I met at Purdue, a university renowned for shaping space innovation, a foreshadowing of the life we would later build in Starbase. My grandfather’s family even worked alongside Elwood Haynes himself, adding a generational link to this tale of invention. Painted with a touch of Kahlo-inspired surrealism, the piece nods gently to making my own dreams tangible while following my husband’s path of engineering achievement, not unlike Kahlo's life of personal success with a successful spouse. Though rooted in Kokomo, this piece looks outward. It has become the companion to a forthcoming mural in Starbase, together forming a pair of works that reflect the journey between two “Cities of Firsts”—from cornfields to rockets, from memory to myth.