‘Anybody and everybody can do it’: New murals to capture the memories, values and culture of the Valley

Blank walls across the cities of Springfield and Holyoke are about to become permanent cultural landmarks.

Common Wealth Murals, a Springfield nonprofit that brings mural art to local neighborhoods, recently announced its 2026 cohort of artists for its Community Mural Training program. As part of the initiative, the 16 selected artists are bringing five new murals to life in Springfield and Holyoke through a deeply collaborative community process.

“There’s a lot of demand for murals — people really enjoy them. And when we create public art that reflects a neighborhood, people feel more connected to each other and to where they live, work or spend their free time,” said Britt Ruhe, founder and executive director of Common Wealth Murals.

One mural, located in Holyoke’s Puerto Rican Cultural District, is already complete. Four remaining murals will be installed across the two cities at the following locations: 518 South Bridge St. in Holyoke; 393 Main St. in Holyoke; 72 Market St. in Springfield; and 15 Lenox St. in Springfield. Each project is produced in partnership with local organizations: Nuestras Raíces, Nueva Esperanza, the Work Opportunity Center, and Jewish Family Service of Western MA.

Common Wealth Murals hosted listening sessions earlier this year to gather residents’ feedback and design concepts for the murals. The mural for Jewish Family Service of Western MA, for instance, centers on “people from very different backgrounds coming together and making a new home in Springfield,” Ruhe said. “[It captures] what they bring with them — their memories, their culture and these values of ‘Everyone is welcome, everyone is honored and we were all refugees or immigrants at one time or another.’”

The design visually features children playing soccer, an Afghan woman and a family reuniting with their grandmother at Bradley International Airport.

Meanwhile, the mural at the Work Opportunity Center highlights the dignity of labor, tracing how employment for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities have evolved from sheltered workshops to full community integration. The mural at Nuestras Raíces focuses on the organization’s urban tree-planting initiative and the ways that trees help communities. The Nueva Esperanza mural features “La Borinqueña,” a Puerto Rican superhero character designed by her original creator, Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez.

Community art boosts “a sense of belonging and also commitment to a community. If you see yourself as part of something, you generally feel a sense of ownership and responsibility toward it,” Ruhe said. “It really enhances people’s sense of, ‘I live here, I’m proud of this, I want to take care of this place.’”

To install the art, the cohort uses the “polytab” method. Instead of traditionally spray-painting or brush-painting directly onto a surface, artists put the designs onto a specialized mural canvas. Common Wealth Murals artists turn that design into a paint-by-number on 5-foot by 5-foot sheets. Those sheets are then brought to massive community paint parties in Springfield and Holyoke.

Those paint parties drew hundreds of participants. “Anybody and everybody can do it, which is really the goal: to make it as accessible as possible and to get as many hands into the process as possible,” Ruhe said.

Following the public parties, the cohort artists return the panels to the studio for fine detailing. Finally, the panels are permanently fused to the walls using an acrylic gel, and the artists blend the seams.

“When they’re done, they’re permanent; you cannot get them off, and they look like they were painted there,” Ruhe said. “You can see the texture of the brick behind, and just driving by or looking at it, you would not know that it wasn’t painted right on the wall, but hundreds of people have helped in the process.”

The 2026 training cohort features 16 local artists: Soe Noire, Xavier Ayala, Adelheide Stetzer, Taliani Cotton, Aliya Stevenson, Carmen Oyola-Callender, Paige Quinn-Vasic, Katie Morales, Indë Francis, Leslie Brazeau, Martin Thomas, Karina Callirgos, Rosalba Jimenez, Edwina Polanco, Maricela García and Jovan Velez. They were selected from a highly competitive pool of global applicants, a demand Ruhe notes highlights a widespread need for technical muralist training programs.

For Ayala, a Springfield native, joining the program fulfills a lifelong bucket-list dream. “I know every day I walk by, or people that I know that support me walk by, they will see that I became a part of something that is bigger,” Ayala said. “It’s a big statement for the city [at the] same time.”

García was drawn to the program as a paid opportunity to level up her career. “I’m an artist in the area, so I’m constantly working on gaining more skills or getting better at what I already do,” she said. “For me, this was another opportunity to learn a new skill. I’m excited to be here.”

Adelheide “Heidi” Stetzer added that the collaborative spirit has been incredibly rewarding.

“Everyone cares so much — not just about the projects we’re working on right now, but about the bigger artistic and creative work that we belong to,” Stetzer said. “It’s a very gratifying feeling to be able to spend your time working on something that means a lot to you and being able to use skills that are hard-earned from a lot of time spent on them in pursuit of something that is for a good cause.”

For more information about Common Wealth Murals, visit commonwealthmurals.org.