50 Murals in 50 Small Towns: How Public Art Can Revive Communities
Interstate 64 whisks drivers right past the 5.7 square-mile city of Covington, Virginia. Like many towns in the Shenandoah Valley, Covington has its fair share of historical curiosities. Thomas Jefferson described one of its waterfalls in his "Notes on Virginia." The town itself is named after a general who fought in the War of 1812. Between 1890 and 1920, industrialization helped its population balloon from less than 1,000 to just over 5,000, a number it's remained at since. Outside of historical trivia, the area’s natural resources are some of the most prized in the state.
At a glance, it’s a postcard-perfect town. Yet, Covington is struggling. History buffs are likely to continue down the interstate to equally intriguing towns in the vicinity. The bigger cities to the south absorb road-trippers, backpackers, and families seeking a balance of commerce and recreation.
As it began to struggle financially, Covington also began to struggle with its identity. The locals wanted to keep the charm of their small city intact, but they also wanted to court tourists to keep the economy healthy. One artist, an area native, placed a small bet.
In December 2021, Cheyenne Renee painted a mural. The response was validating. “I posted photos … and overnight, like immediately, 300, maybe 400 people were just so excited about it,” Renee told me. “I saw my community kind of join hands and be like, ‘This is good. She’s doing something to draw attention to our community and we want to support her.’”
A former eyesore transformed into a local attraction, and the mural was the ultimate proof of concept for a project that had been swirling in her head since the onset of the pandemic: 50 murals in 50 small towns.
More Than Just a Pretty Picture
The unveiling of her hometown mural helped Renee realize that there was more to her project than just paint on a wall. “For me, part of the [50 in 50] project is to kind of lead people to the mural and for that mural to be the starting point for them to explore the area,” Renee shared. That area, for Renee at least, is main street, or downtown. “That’s where the heartbeat is.”
Downtowns were historically the epicenter of energy, she continues. “That was the place to be; it’s where you spent time with friends and where your family grew and where everything happened.”
She’s spoken to fourth-generation business owners who recall the stories of their parents and grandparents. Even in towns of less than 5,000 people, many remember nights at the long-gone roller rink, funnel cake at the weekend markets and the buzz of an average Friday night in the summer. Much of this vivacity has fractured as industries relocated, populations feathered farther away from main street, and satellite strip malls whisked away patrons who were left with no option but to drive for errands and recreation.
What she's discovered in her conversations is that, more than anything, locals want to breathe life back into downtown. “It makes sense. That's where a lot of their roots, their history and their heritage is located. And people just love that.”
Of course, a mural won’t single-handedly save a small town from industry loss and a shrinking population, but the payoff of public art shouldn’t be underestimated. Large-scale murals are repeatedly praised for their positive impact on individual and community well-being, even inspiring neighborhood activism and a sense of belonging and safety. When I asked Strong Towns Director of Community Action Edward Erfurt whether he believes in the power of paint, he underscored the potential for public art to reintroduce dignity to a place.
At the mention of dignity, I couldn’t help but think of my own city of Philadelphia, the unofficial mural capital of the world. Many of the city’s murals overlook vacant or blighted lots, activating otherwise unassuming locations in the city’s most disenfranchised neighborhoods. I’ve witnessed public art transform unofficial dumping sites into community gardens. Neighbors who were formerly disinterested in looking after an abandoned adjacent lot readily assume stewardship with the introduction of some eye candy.
“I really learned how art could make a difference,” Jane Golden, the executive director of Mural Arts Philadelphia, once said in an interview. “How it could be a galvanizing tool, how it could take people from feeling that they were on the margins and would never be heard or seen, and shine a light on the authors of people throughout the city.”
In the Spring, Emma Durand-Wood, a longtime Strong Towns contributor, concluded the same while planning a neighborhood walk. “We typically think of public art as about adding character, personality, beauty or visual interest to a place. Part of that can be communicating ideas about a place’s values, past, hopes for the future, or its community,” she wrote. “But I had never really thought about the potential of public art as a functional part of the built environment until I was mulling over ideas for this Jane’s Walk.”
For Durand-Wood, that function can include traffic calming, such as the edge friction created by colorful curb extensions and painted median marbles in her neighborhood. That function also extends beyond the physical: “The process of creating public art, and the connections that are made and nurtured during this process, can be as valuable as the end result,” she wrote. “As Gracen Johnson says, public art ‘can change the way people feel about each other and their ability to shape their environment.’”
Painted median marbles. (Image by Emma Durand-Wood.)
Indeed, for Renee, the murals have not only been a way to beautify a small town but also a conversation starter. That’s in part because the project requires the coordination of nonprofits, business owners, community groups and, at times, the local government. By putting all of these entities in dialogue with one another, the mural can jumpstart other revitalization efforts. Maybe that looks like cleaning up the sidewalks and installing a crosswalk near the mural to ensure a safe pathway to view it. Or maybe it means endeavoring additional beautification efforts like planting trees and shrubs around the site. Perhaps an adjacent cafe will plant chairs and tables beneath the artwork and another will contribute string lights to illuminate it after dark. In this sense, the mural is a gateway.
The Next Steps
With nine towns down and seven more to go this year, Renee is thinking about other ways the 50 in 50 project could serve the communities that have so generously welcomed her vision. For one, she’s hoping to better coordinate co-commissions with local artists. “You know, I had the idea of maybe, at the end of the project, we could have somebody that is an artist from each location donate a statue that will get placed in one of the 50 towns,” she mused. “And you can read about the 50 in 50 project and that this town has partnered with this town that's, you know, all the way on the other side of the U.S.”
In fact, many of her ambitions involve connecting the project’s towns. “These places have a lot more in common than they might assume,” she highlighted.
She’s seen the pains of a town of 2,000 in the rust belt mirror those of a town of 200 in the prairies. On the flip side, the fruitful initiatives of one town can transfer to another. By enabling these towns, their community leaders and their residents to network, Renee hopes the resulting brain trust can usher in creative responses to shared struggles. “They can learn a lot from one another.”
Even at the Strong Towns National Gathering, where I first met Renee, she heard stories from fellow attendees that were similar to ones she’d encountered in her travels. “This one person sitting at the table from Franklin, Pennsylvania, mentioned how they have these massive trails that go right through their town, but they don't have anything pulling people into their downtown,” she recalled. “And that's a really familiar story. You either have major interstates or roads that are only two minutes away from your main street, and people are driving over it all day, every day, yet there's just no reason for them to stop into town, or perhaps they haven't heard of the town, or whatever it is.”
Then, of course, there’s the potential to leverage this network for tourism. A constellation of sister towns united by her murals could make for a fun road trip. She’s even entertained giveaways: “Hey, if you can go to five of these locations, and check in online and show that you were there, you're entered to win something like a hotel stay or an all-expenses-paid trip to this other town that's within the project."
However she ultimately connects the towns, she hopes that her travels have reignited pride where it may have faded. In my conversation with her, it was clear that Renee was charmed by so many of the small towns she’d visited. “There are small businesses and nonprofits and people doing amazing things in places you’ve never heard of,” she told me. If a humble mural helps shine a light on that work, that’s a good start.
At the time of this writing, the project is still ongoing and anyone interested in nominating their small town for a mural can get in touch with Renee via her website.
Asia (pronounced “ah-sha”) Mieleszko serves as a Staff Writer for Strong Towns. A dilettante urbanist since adolescence, she's excited to convert a lifetime of ad-hoc volunteerism into a career. Her unconventional background includes directing a Ukrainian folk choir, pioneering synaesthetic performances, photographing festivals, designing websites, teaching, and ghostwriting. She can be found wherever Wi-Fi is reliable, typically along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.