06/02/2026
We are very pleased to announce that work on the Spero Health Center mural has been completed. This work was first conceived by Professor Jenny Bell's Fall 2025 Capstone class, and then completed in Spring 2026 by Jess Oden-Wynne and her team.
According to Oden-Wynne, "This project is a gift from MSU to the recovery community. Art can be rather uplifting and special to an otherwise blank space. This mural shows to those who are in recovery and the employees that work there, that people in the community care about them and want to encourage them to do challenging things.
Our concept for the mural was developed over several class sessions and many discussions. We came up with the idea of using turtles to represent the road to recovery, inspired by the Sheltowee Trace turtle icon familiar to the residents of Morehead. Turtles represent Morehead culture and symbolize resilience and persistence. We chose to stay with a color palette inspired by Spero Health's existing logo of complimentary colors, which are orange and blue. The background is a gradient that represents the path from dark to light mirroring the road to recovery. Substance abuse and recovery have affected so many of our lives. We see this mural as an opportunity to provide a gift, not just to those in recovery, but also to those who spend their lives providing that care as well.
The process included lots of planning and getting a small team together to paint the mural. We then contacted Spero and set up our first meeting. The group consisted of four MSU art students. We started painting the gradient background, then we moved onto abstract waves and finally the turtles were added.
The wall will continue to change and evolve as the team at Spero health wants to include signatures and messages of encouragement to those walking the same path and to let them know that no matter what support is always here.
The mural represents not only the waves those in recovery go through but the journey itself. The walk from the darkness of addiction into the light of recovery."
Scroll through to see the process and the final product!
