Mural in Fairfax School Stairwell Begins With Career Day Encounter

FAIRFAX CITY, VA — Emmanuel Chavez Galicia expects to finish the large mural he's painting in a stairwell at Katherine Johnson Middle School in Fairfax City within a week.

The path that the tattoo artist from Dixer Studio took to painting the mural started with a conversation he had last November during the school's career day

After Galicia answered students' questions about how to have a career in the arts, school officials told him they wished they knew about him sooner.

"They were like, 'We wish we had a mural,'" Galicia told Patch on Wednesday. "I said, 'I can do a mural.'"

What followed were months of discussions and approvals, ending with Galicia buying paint from Home Depot and constructing a scaffolding in one of the school's stairwells.

"There's an astronaut right there, and behind it's going to be the codes," the artist said, pointing to the unfinished, upper-right section of his massive portrait of Johnson. Most people probably know the famed NASA mathematician's story from the 2016 biographical film "Hidden Figures."

When the middle school adopted its new name in 2021, it debuted a mural featuring Johnson near the main entrance. With his design, Galicia wanted to do something different.

"We wanted something that was inspiring, but not just inspiring, something modern and more of a custom piece," Galicia said.

Earlier on Wednesday, the middle school hosted its 2022 Career Day, bringing working professionals into the school to talk to seventh and eighth graders about what jobs they might want do one day.

Related: 100 Professionals Mingle With Middle Schoolers On Career Day

School counselor Friday L. Oeur, who was one of the organizers of this year's career day, said that it was important to show students what types of careers were out there.

"If you expose them to a career now, they can start to get ready and take classes in high school," she said. "We had our academies from Falls Church and Chantilly here. There's so many options to get into even at the high school level. It's really important to get them interested in that now."

Many of the questions students asked Galicia on Wednesday were the same that anyone might have for a working artist.

"They were asking just natural organic questions," he said. "They were concerned about what does it take to be an artist? I feel like people and kids, in general, all don't have any idea of what an artist is, right? When it comes to like a painter or graphic designer, what is it? Art is just everything, really."