This mural honors the historic neighborhood of East Lake by using quilts, bricks, and hands to tell stories of community, identity, and faith. Quilts, pieced from scraps, embody resilience, belonging and comfort, their colors carrying memory, emotion, and place. They represent a generational practice of community. Bricks recall both the strength of shelter and the weight of history—shaped from local red clay, they also bear witness to the coerced labor of Black communities who built much of this country. Like quilts, the many individual bricks form one enduring legacy. And hands, and skin, marked by prints, scars, and tone, reveal who we are and where we have been, while also symbolizing connection, love and protection.

On the left wall, a housetop quilt pattern grounds the composition; on the right, a central matriarch figure is encircled by children, representing the legacy of senior residents and the promise of the next generation. While she evokes the memory of Eva Davis, who worked tirelessly to create so much good from so little, the central figure embodies the countless unnamed women who built, sustained, and nurtured this community—and all those who will do so in the future. Hands guide the viewer’s eye across the mural, raised like praise hands, their negative space allowing the unpainted historic brick to shine through. Together, these elements weave a narrative of safety, struggle, and shared humanity, grounding us in both memory and possibility.

Location: Legacy at East Lake Senior Residences,

East Lake Atlanta, GA, 2025

Size: 80’ x 60’

Partners: Columbia Residential, Atlanta Housing, The Residents of the Legacy at East Lake