Under the hum of fluorescent lights in a vacant shop in Chapel Hill's University Mall, Emily Weinstein puts the finishing touches on the 64-foot long mural she started in April.

Durham Technical Community College hired Weinstein to paint the mural to mark its 50th anniversary.

The petite artist has to use scaffolding and ladders to reach the middle and top portions of the mural. She uses old cat food cans to store the paint because she says they stack well and preserve the paint even better than baby food jars.

Weinstein, 55, has been painting since she was 3 years old and has done about 40 murals. Her longest is 170 feet long and 32 feet tall. In Durham she painted the Eno River scene outside the Durham Arts Council on Morris Street, among others.

Isaac Thomas, student development specialist and 2007 graduate, and Ashley Mattheis, former student and part-time staff member , created the proposal for the Durham Tech mural.

Their original idea was to have a Tree of Knowledge with a list of the college's courses on the trunk and inspirational leaders' faces as the fruit.

"We wanted to see artwork here on campus," Thomas said.

When the college announced the mural in March, the faces had been moved to boulders along a path. The plan was to add a new face each year.

After further consideration, Durham Tech decided to paint quotes instead of faces on the boulders because it might be difficult to fund the art and find future artists that could work with mineral paint.

The finished mural contains the Tree of Knowledge, the Durham skyline, a stream running through the mural with a timeline of the college and a path with boulders that contain quotes from historical figures.

Weinstein is using a mineral paint rather than acrylic. Acrylic paint starts to fade and chip after about 25 years, but mineral paint will last over 100 years, she said.

"This paint is tricky at best," she said. "It's like painting with caulk that has a little bit of water in it."

Mineral paint is typically used for industrial purposes, Weinstein said. Each portion of the mural contains anywhere from three to 12 coats of paint.

The mural comprises 16 high-density concrete panels. Each is 10 feet high, 4 feet wide and weighs about 200 pounds. The panels were sanded and primed twice before painting began.

Throughout the process students have helped by painting filler portions of the mural, such as the sky, and calligraphy on the boulders, tree and stream.

The mural, which costs $16,000, will be installed on the Nathaniel B. White Building at the college's main campus on Lawson Street in July. The Student Senate approved the idea and is using unspent money from student fees to pay for the project.