ROCK HILL, SOUTH CAROLINA – Since 1949, the United States has observed Mental Health Awareness Month each May. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) joins the national movement of raising awareness about mental health through providing support, educating the public and advocating for policies that help those who are affected by mental illness.
This important topic inspired the new mural in Winthrop University’s McLaurin Building, the result of a semester’s worth of work by Associate Design Professor Elizabeth Dulemba and the students in her illustration class.
When Dulemba previously taught the class online with fellow faculty member Myles Calvert, the pandemic had turned the world upside down. The pair assigned students the “Soapbox Project,” in which students could pick a topic and build a visual campaign around it.
“Post-COVID, people are simply exhausted, and mental health and self-care have become important issues in society,” Dulemba said. “Students worked for a month on choosing a color palette, deciding on the actual message, doing sketches, finalizing the design, and working towards strong representation and inclusivity. We had tons of conversations! … In our now polarized society, it gave me hope.”
The end result? “A mural that represents lots of diversity, while avoiding representations of anything divisive,” according to Dulemba.
The colorful mural features people of all kinds enjoying a sunny day by a lake. The audience will note representations of vitiligo, wheelchair usage, dwarfism, different ages, LGBTQIA+ and more. Even Big Stuff makes an appearance in a boat!
Ave Radel, a visual communication design major, said the mural process was a good learning experience, particularly on working with others and compromising designs and themes.
“It was really challenging to figure out exactly how we could make a mental health mural that could represent a hopeful message,” Radel said. “We went through at least five rough draft phases before we landed on a final idea and sketched it out for the first time. It was a lot of hard work, and everyone was willing to compromise to get a cohesive rough sketch and color palette decided.”
After the brainstorming and initial sketch work, the creative process included line work, vector work, resizing it to scale, coloring, printing, tracing, and finally, painting.
“Everyone did an amazing job with the long process of making the mural come into being,” Radel said. “Without everyone’s hard work, it wouldn't have been done otherwise. I am grateful to have the chance to be a part of the creative team behind the mural and for the classmates that were willing work together to make the finished product.”
About Elizabeth Dulemba
Dulemba is an award-winning illustrator, author, teacher and speaker. Some of her illustration projects include “On Eagle Cove,” a collaboration with New York Times best-seller and prolific author Jane Yolen; and her 2019 novel, “A Bird on Water Street,” which she wrote and illustrated, which earned her the Georgia Author of the Year Award.
Recent accolades include the 2022 Pearson Excellence in Higher Education for Outstanding Teaching Through the Pandemic.
Prior to her education career, she was the corporate art director and in-house illustrator for packing, apparel, animation and communications firms, and served as illustrator coordinator for the southern region of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She also has served as a board member for the Georgia Center for the Book.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in graphic design from the University of Georgia, an M.F.A. from the University of Edinburgh – Scotland, and a doctorate in children’s literature from the University of Glasgow.
For more information, please contact Nicole Chisari, social media manager, at chisarin@winthrop.edu or 803/323-2403.
