May 26, 2026 by
If you’ve visited North Campus in the past few weeks, you may have noticed a new presence greeting you at the doors: a cherry blossom-adorned panda. Or maybe you’ve walked to the National Zoo from the Woodley Park metro and seen a black and white striped panda outside a restaurant, or the panda near the metro elevator decorated with a red pagoda.
As it turns out, these pandas are all connected. In 2004, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities announced a public art display called PandaMania, where 150 pandas created with a variety of designs would be displayed around DC for 5 months. Over 1,200 local artists submitted designs, and those selected received a $1,500 stipend to paint their pandas. Other pandas include Pandy Warhol stationed in front of a local home, Pandragon outside the Reston metro, World Wide Panda in Friendship Heights, and William Shakesbeare at American University.
Eventually, all of the panda statues were auctioned off, with the profits being donated to various local arts organizations, artist grants, and arts education projects.
The title of the panda newly residing at MILTON is “Beyond the Cherry Blossoms,” and it was made by artist Denine Wish. Denine used pointillism to create this design, employing the use of multiple multicolored dots to make up an image of cherry blossoms surrounding various DC landmarks such as the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument.
Denine currently lives in Pennsylvania, where she runs an art studio that offers classes to children. We are excited to host the work of an educator who has been sharing the arts with her community for several decades!
Beyond the Cherry Blossoms was sponsored by a group of DC hotels, and originally resided at the Washington Renaissance Hotel. After being auctioned off, the panda was on display on the lawn of a house on Yuma Street in Northwest DC. After the house sold, the panda was donated to our school by a MILTON family.
We hope this panda will serve as a reminder of MILTON’s connection to the city of DC for our students, families, and staff, and become an interesting conversation starter for visitors.
To learn more about the pandas, visit Findthepandasdc on Instagram. There is no public list of the current locations of all 150 pandas, so the creator of this account is working to document as many pandas as possible through DC. View a map of the currently documented pandas here.
