Westerville Students and Alumni Help Shape New Columbus Landmark
From Westerville Art Room to 75-Foot Downtown Mural
A quiet moment in a Westerville Central High School art room now lives as a 75-foot ceramic mural on a busy downtown Columbus street. While the finished piece sits miles away at The Pembroke on East Broad Street, its origins trace directly back to Westerville. Student models inspired the mural’s central figure in Jen Kiko’s classroom, it was created with the help of a Westerville-born ceramic artist, and both creators have deep ties to the community. The project ended up weaving Westerville into nearly every stage of its development, even as it became a prominent downtown artwork.
“The Natures,” the new public artwork by artist partners Westerville Central Art Teacher Jen Kiko and Eric Rausch, covers the west wall of The Pembroke with more than 3,000 handcrafted ceramic tiles. The mural features a woman wearing headphones, surrounded by mid-century patterns, houseplants, Ohio flowers, and small details that hint at the building’s history as the former WCOL radio station. At street level, it appears as a single image; up close, it breaks into thousands of shaped, glazed tiles, each hand-cut and carefully placed.
For Kiko, the initial spark happened much earlier, during an ordinary day in her classroom at Westerville Central. While brainstorming ideas for the mural, she asked a small group of her advanced students to help her envision what a “quiet escape into music” might look like.
“I said, ‘Show me what you would look like when you were just listening to music, and you’re lost to the rest of the world,’” she said.
Several students quickly volunteered, passing around headphones and posing while she took a series of reference photos.
“They were like, ‘Take my picture, take my picture,’” she said. “They turned back into little kids for a minute. They had no idea any of it might become part of a 75-foot mural downtown.”
One student, Kayla, made a gesture to Kiko that became the emotional centerpiece of the mural.
“She put on the headphones, and her hands just went into this soft, expressive position,” Kiko said. “Two seconds. That was it. It captured the whole feeling of being pulled inward by music.”
Kiko hadn’t planned to include hands in the final design, but the pose changed her mind. Still, the figure isn’t meant to be a portrait of any single student. The final image combines facial expressions, gestures, and references from several of them, including Kayla’s.
The Westerville thread continued during the fabrication stage. Krissy Beck, the project’s full-time lead assistant, grew up in Westerville and studied in Kiko’s class before graduating from Otterbein University’s ceramics program. She has worked with Rausch for years, including on other large tile installations across central Ohio.
“She remembers Jen talking about our first tile project when she was a student,” Rausch said. “Now she’s a production potter and one of the few Otterbein ceramics grads working daily in clay. She’s been a crucial part of these large pieces.”
Rausch himself relates to the story as another local figure: he graduated from Westerville North and has lived in the community for most of his life. Among the two artists, their assistant, and the students who influenced the mural’s design, the Westerville impact spans from idea to completion.
The mural captures the building’s layered history. Constructed in the late 1940s in a mid-century modern style, the structure once housed a radio station, and Kiko and Rausch wanted to incorporate that history directly into the piece. The background features a pattern adapted from the mid-century era, cut into repeating rounded tiles. The figure’s headphones symbolize the building’s broadcast past, and faint “sound waves” radiate outward from her, giving the scene a quiet pulse.
Since The Pembroke is now a residential building, the artists included imagery that would feel familiar to both apartment residents and Ohio homeowners. On the left side of the mural, there are houseplants like jade and snake plants. Moving right, the plants transition to daylilies, peonies, black-eyed Susans, along with local birds and butterflies, subtle hints of Ohio’s environment and customs.
The project is also the first large-scale artwork funded by the Wayne P. Lawson Memorial Fund for Creativity, established to honor the longtime director of the Ohio Arts Council and his belief that public art should be be accessible and rooted in community. A plaque recognizing Lawson will be installed next to the mural.
When asked why Westerville doesn’t yet have a similar large-scale ceramic installation, Rausch was straightforward. Creating a tile mural on this scale requires substantial funding and long-term commitment, he explained, and while many people love the idea of public art, few budgets can support a project of this magnitude. “Everybody wants a big mural, but most expect it for a fraction of what it takes,” he said. “We’d love to do one in Westerville. The opportunity just hasn’t lined up yet.”
The completed piece was recently revealed, and Kiko’s students have already asked when they can see it in person. A spring visit seems likely once the weather is more cooperative.
“They’ve been so supportive,” Kiko said. “Teachers, administrators, students—they’re all asking about it, wanting to know when they can go. It’s been lovely.”
For people passing Broad Street, the mural stands out as a bold new addition to the city’s public art scene. For Westerville, it tells a different story: that a classroom exercise, a former student’s craft, and a pair of local artists can come together to create something large enough to transform a wall, a street, and the outlook of an entire neighborhood.
The Westerville News is a reader-supported publication by Gary Gardiner, a lifelong journalist who believes hyper-local reporting is the future of news. This publication focuses exclusively on Westerville—its local news, influence on Central Ohio, and how surrounding areas shape the community.
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