DES MOINES, Iowa — Crews started to paint a mural at Evelyn K. Davis Park on the basketball courts on Monday and work is expected to wrap up sometime next week.

The mural’s title is ‘Growth Culture’ and represents an environment that fosters continuous learning, values collaboration, encourages help-seeking, supports personal development, ensures safety, and provides essential resources.

Jill Wells is a local Des Moines artist and was commissioned to design the mural. Wells said she incorporated the community’s input into the mural’s design.

“I’ve always said that art is one of the great connectors. So being able to work with the King-Irving neighborhood and the kids at King Elementary allowed us to use that universal language through art, to talk about culture, to talk about representation, and then to convey that into the basketball court design. It’s just a very special and reciprocal process,” Wells said.

The mural spans the two full courts and half-court at Evelyn K Davis Park.

Aaron Graves, the Project Manager for the City of Des Moines’ Parks and Recreation Department, said that the mural wouldn’t be possible without generous donations from the community.

“It was just mainly a matter of finding funding and luckily we were awarded a Bravo Public Art Grant and then had two private donors, the Friends of Des Moines Parks and the Griswold family that help fully fund this project,” Graves said.

To learn more about the mural check out the Des Moines Parks and Recreation Department’s Facebook post.