‘Paint the State’ Anti-drug Mural Contest Started by Local Student Registration ends August 30

Indiana’s youth is actively engaging in the state’s public art projects. Inspired by a public art contest more than 1,700 miles away in Missoula, Montana, Hazel Hammerstein, a high school student in Bloomington, initiated Indiana’s version of the project to raise awareness about the dangers of methamphetamines. Hazel’s project is a mural contest called Paint the State.

Hazel Hammerstein is a junior at Bloomington High School South | Courtesy photo

Hazel has lived in Indiana for most of her life. After attending Bloomington Montessori School for preschool, she went on to Childs Elementary School until second grade and returned there for her fifth-grade school year after living in Montana for three years.

Now a junior at Bloomington High School South, she performs in the school’s orchestra and runs cross country and track. She says, “Running is definitely my go-to activity! I have always enjoyed the solitude of running and making personal goals.” While she has yet to decide which colleges she would like to attend, she is interested in a career in psychology or mental health.

There are no time slots in her packed school schedule for the art classes she would like to take. Even so, she enjoys creating things. In the summer of 2023, she entered the Montana Meth Project youth mural contest. Responding to the project’s slogan, “Not Even Once,” she designed a mural whose central image is a woman about to dip her toes into a shark-infested pool.

While Hazel collaborated with her sister to produce the mural, they enlisted the support of their Girl Scouts troop in Missoula to maintain it at the Missoula County Fairgrounds.

“The mural project was a challenge, but it was very satisfying to see it come together,” she says. “I had a lot of fun putting together the design, which I did digitally first. And it was a lot of fun thinking about scenarios or metaphors for ‘Not Even Once.’”

After her mural was exhibited, Hazel decided to start up an Indiana version of the Montana Meth Project. She called it the Indiana Prevention Project, a nonprofit she founded in 2023 as part of her Girl Scouts Gold Award project. It received the endorsement of Holly Warren, the city of Bloomington’s assistant director for the arts. Hazel says, “Holly Warren was very good about meeting with me and offering lots of tips and guidance for how to make this project happen.”

Hazel started a mural contest called Paint the State to spread the message about the dangers of drug use. | Courtesy photo

To spread the message that first-time drug use can be hazardous, the Montana Meth Project required the inclusion of “Not Even Once” in murals. Hazel was inspired by the state’s 77 percent reduction in first-time teen meth use since MMP’s inception. She says, “We also have problems with drugs [in Indiana], and the idea of the campaign inspired by the Montana Meth Project is that stopping drug use before it starts is the best approach. Meth is incredibly addictive upon initially using it.”

Her parents, physicians John and Jeanette Hammerstein, have also inspired her. She describes them as “very open about some of the things they have seen in their work, and some of the social struggles that happen when people get mixed up with drugs.” Her conversations with them motivate her to prevent drug use and addiction among Indiana youth.

For Hazel, the most challenging aspect of starting up the Indiana Prevention Project was promotion and outreach, “encouraging people to do the project,” she says. “I think many people hear the word, ‘mural,’ and get intimidated by the size. As you can see from my mural, it was small, and once we got into it, very doable.”

Along with her parents, a panel of adults have offered her support. They include educator Erinn Drone; artist and educator Felice Pierce; Mary Beth O’Brien, creative director of Women Writing for (a) Change, Bloomington; and Darrick Byers, artist and owner of Krystalla. Her Girl Scouts leader in Montana, Kara Cook, has also been encouraging. “When I run into roadblocks, she has been great at finding contacts and resources even though she lives so far away,” says Hazel.

When asked if she has any advice for aspiring youth, and particularly for mural contest participants, she says, “Just go for it! There really is nothing to lose! For us, we found doing our mural on panels was very forgiving, as we could do the project at home, and make adjustments as we needed before installation, so there was less pressure.”

For Hazel Hammerstein, public art is an effective medium for raising consciousness about public health problems. As meth and opioid addiction among Indiana teens continues to be problematic, the Indiana Prevention Project’s Paint the State anti-drug mural contest is a major initiative, and one that is very much needed today.