COMMUNITY MURAL INSTITUTE

How do our public spaces currently tell us how to be, who we are, or where we’re going? How do we activate our public spaces with community voices? How can public murals help us claim our voices, celebrate our history and seed our communal futures? How do we as artists learn to use murals as a tool for community organizing?

There is increasing interest in murals as a means of creative place-keeping, and particular interest in professional murals that involve the community in their creation. However, there are very few opportunities to learn how to meaningfully engage the community in the design and painting while still producing professional public murals.

How do we activate our public spaces with community voices?

About the CMI

The Community Mural Institute (CMI) is a collaboration between GoodSpace Murals and Common Wealth Murals. In the process we teach, murals start with facilitated community gatherings to identify themes, ideas and images that resonate with the group. The muralist takes these ideas and designs the mural which is then projected onto specially prepared mural fabric, creating a giant paint-by-numbers. These fabric panels are brought into the community for paint parties where any- and everyone can help paint. The muralist then does the detail work and overpainting in a studio before the mural is permanently installed on the wall. Murals made in this way combine community input and the design skills of professional muralists, give hundreds of people the chance to actively participate in the mural’s creation, and these murals last longer and weather better than murals painted directly on the wall.

The scope of each CMI is tailored to the host community’ needs. Every CMI combines online and in-person instruction, experiential learning, and professional mentorship. Local artists receive paid training, hundreds of community members can engage in design conversations and paint parties, and up to 3 beautiful new murals are created in your community.

“Seeing someone's face light up from the feeling of looking at art that really impacts them is what I cherish most in the world. It didn't occur to me the scope of what a truly community driven mural world could offer the people of Fitchburg. Children who helped us at the paint parties can see a celebration of their love of art every day from their apartment windows. All it took was a little fresh paint to change the face of our community and empower our artists with new capabilities”

— Fitchburg CMI Artist