A brush with fate led a Vandal to a thriving mural career

Mikaela Herrick found success as an artist before she accepted the title as her profession.

As a teenager in Kooskia, Herrick painted a picture of a moose that was displayed in the office of an Idaho legislator. Other paintings hung in businesses around the Clearwater Valley where she graduated from high school as a three-sport athlete before earning academic and general scholarships to attend U of I.

Although she planned to earn a business degree as a Vandal, she flunked her first business exam — a failure that changed Herrick’s degree path. It was the brush with fate that gave her a new perspective.

“Since I had my education paid for, I thought I may as well study something I like,” she said.

Now, as a muralist who paints the sides of barns, bars, boathouses, galleries and grain bins, often with the Vandal logo, Herrick has traveled all over the state displaying her love of U of I and the Vandal community with her art.

“I loved my time at U of I and if I had not failed that first exam, I might have a completely different career,” she said.

Herrick, who now lives in Coeur d’Alene, earned a bachelor’s degree in studio art and design with an emphases in ceramics, painting and graphic design. After graduating in 2023, she fell into a job that many naysayers ascribe as the obvious outcome of an art degree: She worked as a barista. But her love of art kept calling.

“I got contracts to paint the side of houses and buildings and knew I couldn’t keep asking for weeks off from work each time I got another project, so I had to make a decision,” she said.

She hung out a shingle: Artist for hire.

It has turned into a sustainable career.

One large scale project, part of her senior capstone, included painting a mural on the Prichard gallery along Highway 95 in downtown Moscow.

It got noticed.

“I started getting calls to paint murals as far away as southeastern Idaho,” she said.

On a two-story wooden farmhouse in Dubois, a town of 650 along Highway 15 that runs from Butte, Montana, to Salt Lake City, Utah, she painted the Vandal logo.

“I had painted all my life but never at that scale,” said Herrick, who had to get certified as a scissor lift operator to paint the murals.

After accepting the DuBois job, the homeowner sent her pictures and measurements, and she used a computer program for the design.

“I loaded up all the paint and materials into my car and drove seven hours to the job,” she said.

It took a week to complete.

She was called to paint two, steel-sided grain silos along Highway 26, near Gooding, which led to more jobs.

Her latest Vandal mural completed last summer can be seen from Highway 95 at Nez Perce.

“That’s the biggest one I’ve done so far,” she said. “It took over a month to do.”

John Barnhart, co-chief marketing officer at U of I, was among those who noticed Herrick’s talent for painting big stuff.

As a means of promoting the university, Barnhart hired Herrick to "Vandalize” large, highly visible structures — barns, grain bins, buildings — in strategic locations across the Gem State.

"Our Vandal family reaches out to us to offer grain bins, barns, houses and so much more as a canvas to “Vandalize” and we’ve taken advantage of this generosity,” he said. “Mikaela is an immensely talented artist, so no matter what we throw at her, we know she will make us look good.”

As a kid in Kooskia, Herrick was encouraged by her family to paint and draw — an aunt in Wisconsin is also a freelance artist — and she immediately found her niche handling a brush and tubes of paint.

Painting at mural scale wasn’t something Herrick thought would become her bread and butter. And the job comes with its own challenges. Summer heat turns the galvanized steel or metal canvases of shops, roofs and barns into broiler plates.

“They get really hot fast, so I have to use special paints and primers,” she said.

Her lack of success as a business student required her to take another swipe at learning the transaction-end of being an artist.

“I was taught some of the business aspects of being an artist at U of I and I am so thankful for those lessons I learned in my classes,” she said.

She is immersed in it now, and it’s still a learning process, she said. She charges by the square foot, and takes into consideration the environment, climate, travel expenses and difficulty of the project.

“I’ve lost money but that’s how you learn,” she said.

Professor Delphine Keim remembers her student as multitalented.

“Mikaela had her hands in everything — painting, graphic design, ceramics — all of it,” Keim said. “She had wonderful breadth.”

Her breadth, taken literally, can be seen in most of her recent works.

She spent a week branding a boathouse on Lake Coeur d’Alene with the Vandal logo.

“That one was tough, even though I had done the logo many times and had a good idea how to lay it out,” Herrick said.

She often uses a giant projected image at night to paint the initial logo to scale and projecting the image onto a boathouse that moves on a liquid surface was untenable.

“It was summer and there were so many boats going by it rocked the boathouse, so it was moving constantly,” she said. “I did a lot of that by hand and had to quit at three o’clock because of the wakes from all the boat traffic going by.”

Less driven painters may have thrown up their hands at a project that required creativity, out of the box thinking and a consistent passion to get it right, said Keim.

“She has a great ability to incorporate feedback, show up consistently, revise thoughtfully, and see things through,” Keim said. “It’s a magical combination of drive, creative vision and genuine responsibility.”

Her contract with University of Idaho to promote the Vandal community with paint and brush keeps her busy, but she also spends time with en plein air art, commissioned works, commercial projects and just fun stuff.

Mikaela’s Art Gallery can be found on Facebook and Instagram.

“I wouldn’t be doing any of this, if it wasn’t for the encouragement I got from my professors and the Vandal community,” she said. “I am really grateful to be doing the work that I love.”