Our First Community Mural

Community murals have a quiet kind of power.

They do not announce themselves the way monuments do, or demand attention like billboards. Instead, they grow out of shared effort, shared space, and shared vulnerability. They belong to everyone who touches them, no matter how briefly.

Our very first community mural taught me this lesson in a way I could never have learned from a studio, a classroom, or a perfectly planned project. It was a powerful experience, and it was entirely in Spanish.

The initial sketch of our very first community mural on the side of a medical building in Costa Rica.

That mural still lives on the side of a medical building in El Higuerón, Costa Rica.

At the time, I did not know it would become the foundation for everything that followed. I only knew that my sister, who was serving in the Peace Corps, had called me with an idea. Her voice carried the kind of excitement that only comes from being deeply embedded in a community. She told me about the town, about the clinic, about the children who gathered when medical staff came through the town each month, and about a blank wall that felt like an invitation. She asked if I would come paint with them.

I said "yes" before I knew how complicated “yes” would become.

I prepared for the project the only way I knew how: I sketched out ideas, planned the design, and bought paint in every shade we would need. My sister informed me that it would be hard to find much paint in Costa Rica. She would be able to bring a limited amount of paint via bus from San Jose. I asked her to buy five small cans: the primary colors plus black and white. I would buy the fancier and more specific colors in the United States and bring them with us. I remember standing in the store, lining up cans like a promise: color, possibility, intention. I wanted to assure we had every brilliant color. I purchased over a dozen vibrant shades and packed the carefully into my suitcase, imagining the moment I would open it in Costa Rica and begin. They took up nearly the entire suitcase.

We were all excited each time we saw monkeys.

I was traveling with our two children, our aunt and her daughter. First, we flew from Bend, Oregon to Atlanta, Georgia, where our one-night hotel was hosting a Santa convention. Even though it was August, the hotel lobby was filled with jolly older men with white beards and a wide array of red clothing. From Georgia, we flew to the very tiny airport in Liberia in the northwest region of Costa Rica. My sister met us there and we loaded into a van to drive up into the mountains. Eventually the roads transitioned from paved to dirt, and we all loaded into the back of a truck for the last leg of the trip.

When we arrived, I unzipped my suitcase, and my plan collapsed instantly. In the transition from the airport to the tiny town, juggling multiple bags and people, I had not noticed how much lighter my suitcase was. Every single can of paint was gone. In its place was one small piece of paper from TSA, informing me—politely and impersonally—that the paint had been confiscated.

No pre-mixed paint. Just a wall, a community waiting, and the sinking realization that control was already slipping away. We were going to mix everything. E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G.

Mixing our paint for the project. Note the containers.

Side Note: If you have painted with me, then you know that I only paint with primary colors. This is how it all began.

We were not just missing the colors I had purchased, we did not have any sort of container to mix new colors in.

In retrospect, that was the moment the mural truly became a community mural.

We cut old soda bottles, emptied food containers, and cleaned out anything that resembled a bowl. Using razor blades, we shaved off bottlenecks. Our colors shifted.

Using my camera to help communicate an idea to a Tican boy.

As we started adding colors to the wall, the palette adapted. The design transformed into a paint-by-number mural that could be understood visually rather than verbally, which mattered because from start to finish, the entire process unfolded in Spanish—and I am not fluent.

That detail is important. I was leading the mural, but I was not leading in my comfort zone. Instructions were gestured, drawn, repeated, misunderstood, and re-understood. Laughter filled the gaps where words failed. Children translated for adults. Adults corrected children. People asked questions I could not fully answer, and then answered them together.

Our niece, our son and three local children starting the mural.

The wall became a gathering place. Curiosity gathered. As with most creative projects, children arrived first, dipping brushes too deep into paint, splattering their shoes and each other. Adults followed, tentative at first, then confident, then invested. Some had never painted before. Some stayed for hours. Some returned the next day, checking on “their” sections as if they were living things.

I watched ownership emerge in real time. This was no longer my mural. It was ours.

The medical building itself seemed to absorb the energy. What had been a plain exterior transformed into something welcoming, something very much alive. Nearly everyone in the town participated. The mural sparked conversations that I could only understand small snippets of - but I understood the inflection of joy.

Almost done!

There were moments of frustration, of course. Moments when I wished I could explain myself more clearly, or stick to the original plan, or retrieve that lost suitcase of paint. But each time control slipped further away, something better took its place: collaboration, trust, humility.

I learned that community murals are not powerful because of how they look, but because of how they are made. They compress language barriers, cultural differences, age gaps, and social roles into a single shared act. They create a reason to stand side by side. They give people permission to contribute without needing credentials or confidence.

Standing in front of the completed mural with our son, daughter and niece.

That first mural in El Higuerón taught me that leadership does not mean directing. Sometimes it means listening poorly but earnestly. Sometimes it means adapting publicly. Sometimes it means letting the work be imperfect because the process is honest.

Years later, and many murals later, when I think about Costa Rice, I do not think about finished walls. I think about children with paint on their hands, adults stepping back to admire progress, and a wall that stopped being blank the moment people gathered in front of it. I think about a suitcase full of missing paint and how necessary that loss turned out to be.

That mural still stands, weathered by sun and time, but held together by something stronger than paint. It stands as proof that when a community creates together, the result is not just an image—it is a shared memory, permanently written into the place it calls home.