Mopar Man Cave is a garage mural painted in Pittsboro, North Carolina in 2021. Created during the tail end of the Covid quarantine period, it was part of a body of work I continued making at home while social distancing — transforming personal spaces into immersive environments even as public life was only gradually reopening.

Designed for a private garage, the mural was built around the energy of Mopar culture, muscle cars, racing, and the ritual objects of a well-loved man cave. At its center are favorite Mopar cars bursting through a painted brick wall, turning the main span of the garage into a high-impact, stylized scene of motion, sound, and mechanical pride. Because motorsports and drag racing were already familiar terrain to me, I was able to build the mural from lived visual knowledge as much as from reference gathering. Years earlier I had nearly stepped into drag racing myself as a motorcyclist, photographed drag racing motorcyclists in Epping, New Hampshire and in New York, spent time in the pits with hot passes at major races including New Hampshire International Motor Speedway and Daytona, and attended drag races at multiple venues over the years. My husband’s brother also drag races, so Rockingham was not an abstract reference point but part of a racing world we had already experienced firsthand.

Though the mural showcases one person’s interests, it speaks to something broader that I enjoy about custom mural work: the ability to translate someone’s passions, personality, and visual shorthand into a space that feels unmistakably theirs. In this case, I incorporated favorite Mopar vehicles, racing iconography, whiskey and bourbon references, cigars, dart-related details, toolbox and tire imagery, and the sticker-like graphics and visual language often found in garages shaped by car culture. A finish-line flag girl — meant as a playful nod to me — also made her way into the design.

Like many of my murals, this one was layered with easter eggs. Some are immediately legible, while others are more personal and rewarding to notice over time. That balance mattered to me: I wanted the mural to feel exciting and recognizable at first glance, while also becoming more meaningful the longer you looked.

The mural began with digital concept art, which I refined as I gathered reference images and worked through what belonged in the scene. While mocking up the design, I used a photo I had taken of the actual garage wall with the toolbox, mini fridge, work bench, and dart board still in place so I could plan the composition around where those elements would ultimately live, even though they had to be moved out of the way during the prep and paint phases. On the wall itself, I used a large chalk doodle grid to map the composition and build the final mural from the space outward. That process let me respond to the wall in a way that felt structured but still alive, helping the finished piece feel both personal and fully integrated into the garage environment.
The finished wall became more than a backdrop. It became a custom visual environment built around identity, taste, and the details that make a space feel personal.

Title: Mopar Man Cave - Garage Mural
Size: 20' h x 29' w
Site/City: Pittsboro, NC 
Medium: Acrylic paint Interior latex paint
Date: 2021.