Creative Girls Rock®️ Mural Artists
Creative Girls Rock®️ Mural, 1006 Buchanan St, Nashville, TN 37208
The CGR Mural Project program teaches young girls and women the essential design principles and techniques for crafting uplifting mural paintings. Participants gain invaluable artistic and cultural insights from seasoned professionals, engaging in creative expression, honing their skills, and collaborating on community-centered mural projects.
Elisheba “Queen Bee” Mrozik
Our Lead Mural Artist, Elisheba Israel Mrozik, has been a business owner and pioneering community leader for more than 12 years in North Nashville. Her shop, One Drop Ink Tattoo, has been creating art on and for North Nashvillians and others around the world as well as sponsoring, hosting and creating cultural community events like the Jefferson Street Art Crawl, helping to preserve the legacy of creativity in North Nashville.
As an active member of the community, Elisheba and her brand QueenBeeInk, have been advocating for fine art with community purpose, partnering with schools, institutions, businesses and community partners to make a better community. As the current President of the North Nashville Arts Coalition, Elisheba takes arts advocacy very seriously, with events like Portfolio Day, Ink Link Community Art Booth, and the upcoming North Nashville Culture Crawl to set precedents for community engagement and the arts. As an artist, Elisheba loves to take unique approaches to her mural work, incorporating actual voices of the community as well as interactive elements to broaden their impact.
Caitlin Mello
Caitlin Mello, not only creates her own work - she works to cultivate partnerships, and connect other creatives with dynamic, inclusive opportunities nationwide as the Creative Community Partner for global brands at We Are Rosie. She is proud of her work as the Creative & Marketing Director for our city's newest professional MLS soccer team, Nashville Soccer Club, for their first three seasons. At NSC, she focused on taking the creative strategy beyond the field, engaging the community through soccer, and including over 60+ local artists featured in the environmental design of the new 30K seat stadium, championing and curating one of the most inclusive local art and sport initiatives in the world.
Miss Mello always keeps time carved out for innovative public art activations, and creating ways to inspire change and discussion through art… especially with her favorite powerful team of women artists on Creative Girls Rock projects. She serves on the board of the North Nashville Arts Coalition and as a guest resident artist for MNPS, and is committed to collaborative, community-lead energy into all aspects of her professional and artistic life.
Caitlin credits her creativity to the experiences and prolific people she met living in Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Barcelona, Cuzco and eventually back to her roots with the most inspiring artists right here in Nashville. Outside of work, you can find Miss Mello on her way to the ocean with Marley, her 15-year-old-daughter and greatest love. She is fluent in Spanish; loves Pablo Neruda, red lipstick and a perfect juicy mango.
Shadale Smith
Shadale Smith is a Nashville native and self-taught artist. She attended Tennessee State University and obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Business Marketing. At a very young age, Shadale was introduced to art and was heavily influenced by art mentors and family in her artistic development and expression. This is the impetus for the passion that she has for the visual arts.
Shadale makes work that expresses her perspective on social justice and the need for awareness of equality and positivity. She uses bold colors in her paintings to capture the viewers attention, she makes collages that address specific areas of culture that can spark necessary conversations, and she includes text in her work to encourage positivity. Heavily inspired by our youth, Shadale’s main goal is to bring awareness to the need for the arts, particularly with younger generations.
She realizes that they are the future and it is imperative to guide, nurture, and educate them with curriculum that includes art. As a mentor of several art projects for youth groups, Shadale encourages them to create and develop a discourse for the things that interest them. Shadale has exhibited her work in several spaces in the Nashville area. She was recently featured in The Nashville Scene for her work on a collaborative project called “Reflections,” and contributed to the Slim n’ Husky Rollout Mural through the Creative Girls Rock Foundation. She also participated in the TIRCC mural as well as the “Let’s Color Nashville” project.
Painting is Shadale’s healing, her way of self-expression, and her therapy. She hopes that every encounter between the viewer and her work presents enlightenment, encouragement, and inspiration.
LaKesha Moore
Lakesha Moore was educated in Nashville and has strong international ties. Her creative work consists of writing, paintings, prints and drawings focused on identity, memory and belonging. She earned her M.F.A. in Painting from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and a B.F.A. in Painting (Art History Minor) from Washington University in St. Louis. She holds a M.Ed. in Instructional Practice from Lipscomb University, and is currently a faculty member in Tennessee State University's Art & Design Department. She's exhibited in various university spaces, art centers and galleries primarily in Middle and East Tennessee, Michigan, Louisiana and St. Thomas USVI.
Cora Green
Cora Green is a self-taught artist born and raised in Nolensville, Tennessee. At the age of four, she started teaching herself how to draw different cartoons and comics. She has grown into one of the most renowned artists of her time. Garnering national and international recognition in Vanity Fair, Tatler and House and Garden.
Cora uses a variety of mediums such as watercolors, acrylics, gouaches, oils, and pencils. Most of her art is created with a monochromatic style; the use of a single hues, making different shades, tints, and tones. Each piece is striking and moving, compelling you to examine feelings of deep thoughts, happiness, sadness, anger, pain or contemplation within the subjects.
Art is not only her personal love but something Ms. Green shares and pays forward. She has volunteered her time and served as a board member of Poverty and the Art, participated in numerous art crawls and charities, and currently serves on the Tennessee Craft(Mid-State) committee. She also teaches art classes at Brookdale Assisted Living of Green Hills in Nashville, Tennessee.
Cora has also done a few large murals in Nashville and surrounding areas. As murals and large form art pieces are a platform that is growing widely across urban areas in the U.S., she has brought her moving works of art to breathe life into these old structures in the city.
Donna Woodley
Donna Woodley is a visual artist whose most recent works discuss the examination of black culture in conjunction with American culture. At her core, she is a portrait painter, and loves to make work that speaks to notions of black experience. The figure in Donna’s paintings is confrontational towards the visibility and value of black people within American society, both historically and in a contemporary context.
She was named Nashville’s Best New Artist in 2016 by the Nashville Scene publication and has continued down a path of success. Some of her most recent works are housed at Vanderbilt University and The Frist Art Museum. As a professor of art at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN and Tennessee State University in Nashville, TN., Donna has served integrally helping to develop students technically and introducing them to understanding how to critically think about the visual arts. She resides in Nashville, TN and is ecstatic about her future as a maker.
