A new I-Spy mural has popped up downtown. Bright outlined faces — adorned with mohawks, piercings and sunglasses — cover a wall on the Children's Museum of Acadiana.

Artist and Lafayette native Colette Bernard was inspired by the many faces she sees in New York City. While on winter break from Pratt Institute, the college junior came back to create the mural, working off of her sketches.

"I draw a lot in my sketch book," she said. "I kind of base it off of people watching. Especially living in New York, you can go to any public park and there’s so many personalities."

The intricate details in the mural helped formulate an I-Spy checklist, available inside the museum. There are 84 items, including an Acadian flag, a sandwich and a snowball.

Bernard saw a blank wall downtown and thought "That needs something." She reached out to officials in downtown Lafayette. This wasn't the first time she had reached out, previously hoping to create an installation in Parc Sans Souci. But concern of injuries with a sculpture meant the idea couldn’t happen.

"I still had that contact in my pocket and I was like, 'Alright I’m gonna reach out to the same person.'"

And just like that, she had a grant that helped pay for all the supplies.

"I don’t wait for the opportunity … I didn’t wait to get asked. I saw a blank wall and thought 'OK this is what we’re doing.'"

This isn’t the first time Bernard has taken the lead with her art. When she was 15 years old, she spent the summer in the city working at New Orleans Glassblowing and Printmaking Studio. What started as a failed application to a summer camp turned into an internship.

Prior to the summer job, she was planning on being a forensic scientist. Although she had made it into her school's Talented Program, a program that fosters the development of the artistic talents in student, she was set on science. In eighth grade, she used a job shadow opportunity to follow a forensic scientist.

After struggling with biology, while confiding in her Talented teacher, they brought up the fact that Bernard wasn't taking the forensic scientist classes offered at school but she double booked her Talented classes.

"That day, I was like 'I’m an artist,'" Bernard said. After that decision, she worked on her portfolio until she graduated.

Bernard grew up in an artistic family though. Her father, Shane Bernard, is a writer and historian for Tabasco at Avery Island. Her grandfather, Rod Bernard, was a famous swamp pop musician.

"So I come from a family of artistic people," she said. "I grew up with this 'You can do whatever you want as long as you’re good at it,' ideology."

She's held on to that philosophy and applied it to the mural. After gaining approval from downtown and from the museum, creating the mural was smooth sailing — for the most part. One week was full of rain. With rain comes 'sweat', precipitation sticks to walls and paint starts to slide.

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When it was down to the wire with ten days left before school started, Bernard had to get extra hands. She reached out for help on Reddit. The title of her post said 'Urgent. I need help.'

A handful of people joined in her effort to finish in time. But the most unlikely form of help came from passersby.

"I got so much help from pedestrians," she said. "I had two people even help prime the surface … I was like, 'Are you sure? You want to do this part? This part isn’t even fun.'"

Bernard prefers to work with digital fabrication, having created many sculptures and hoping to one day start a sculpture park. While her sculpture practice is serious and contemporary, she also dabbles in other styles because she's all for artists still making art just for fun.

Her art tends to have a sense of humor that can be cynical. She's working on a rock wall, with hand holds made of valentine's candy hearts saying things like "convenient," "codependent," and "unmatched."

But then again, if you see her work or social media feed, it comes across as rainbows and sunshine. She routinely gets told from friends that her art is a reflection of internal personality rather than what she puts out there. Although she is driven and serious, her work is go-lucky and fun.

"I'm still navigating what I want to display to the world," she said. "Not everything an artist makes has to put on a show."

For now, she hopes her I Spy mural will influence the local art scene and inspire a change. She wants to be the person who gets the train going for diversity in the art world of Lafayette.

"I want to make a mural but I don’t want to make just any mural," she said. "I want it to be as diverse and open as possible. I want people to be able to walk up and say 'Oh look, that one kind of looks like me, or grandma, or a neighbor.'"

Contact Victoria Dodge at vdodge@theadvertiser.com or on Twitter @Victoria_Dodge