A downtown Bryan mural brings art and science to life
Graduate student’s design and research spark young curiosity in art and science
Think back to the moment you first knew you wanted to be a doctor, a teacher, a scientist, whatever it is you grew up to do. For a lot of people, it started small. A book. A class. A stranger who showed up one day and made a subject come alive.
Grace Martindale ’23 ’26 remembers her own version of that moment.
“Someone came in and did a presentation on reptiles,” said Martindale, a graduate student finishing her master’s degree with the Texas A&M Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology this summer. “It had a pretty big influence on who I grew up to be and what I do.”
That is what she hopes happens now with a mural covering a door in a downtown Bryan alley. It shows a bright, colorful mouse painted by a group of local kids from a design Martindale drew herself.
A love of animals and art
That love for animals started well before any classroom visit, back before she could even talk, growing up with two Labrador retrievers underfoot at home. Art came early too, filling sketchbooks long before an AP art class in high school.
She carried both interests with her to Texas A&M.
When her advisor, Jessica Light, Ph.D., professor in the department and curator of mammals at the Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections, asked if she would be interested in designing a piece of art tied to their research, Martindale said yes right away.
Martindale worked with Purple Turtle Art Studio in downtown Bryan to turn her sketch into the finished piece. Kids from the studio, ranging from elementary to high school age, painted her design onto the door in the alley. Martindale even got to meet the young artists at a reveal event.
Hoping to spark that moment for someone else
The mural is part of a larger project supported by the National Science Foundation, exploring the biodiversity of North American deer mice. The kids who painted it got a hands-on introduction to that research while they worked. Now anyone who walks past can get the same chance, just by scanning the QR code tucked next to the design.
Martindale said the best part of the project was watching kids get excited about something she made. She does not expect any of them to remember the finer details of her research. What she hopes sticks is something simpler.
“These kids probably aren’t going to remember the science behind it,” she said. “But they will remember science can be cool and creative.”
Maybe, somewhere down the line, that memory turns into a career in ecology and conservation biology the same way a school visit once did for her.
