For artist Alexandra Pangburn, the eyes are the most important thing.

“There’s so much language in the eyes,” she said. “I really try to bring my work to life through the eyes of animals.”

Pangburn paints murals of flora and fauna. Her birds, buffalo, bighorn sheep, dogwood blossoms and dahlias can be seen on walls across Colorado. And in the coming weeks, a new set of Pangburn-painted eyes will appear somewhere in Boulder. Pangburn is one of 21 artists selected for the annual Street Wise Mural Festival, a three-day event of public art and activism held in the industrial area around 47th and Pearl streets. It is also one of four mural festivals taking place on the Front Range over the next month.

Street Wise was founded in 2019 by Leah Brenner Clack as a way to express feelings of hopelessness in the face of big social and political problems.

“I consider myself an activist at heart, an artist by nature, and an organizer by skill,” Clack said. “Creating something powerful with a group of artists was something I knew I could do and that could have a lasting impact.”

Mural painting has long been a strategy for creating change and bringing communities together. The most widespread example in the United States is the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Program, a New Deal project that began in 1935 and funded more than 2,500 murals across the country in post offices, parks, libraries, and other public spaces. The WPA program was largely inspired by the Mexican government’s support for muralists—most notably David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, and Diego Rivera, collectively known as Los Tres Grandes—who helped establish and present a national identity in the 1920s.

“If you do it right, the stories that are told through art are representative of the neighborhood,” said Aaron Vega, founder of the Colfax Canvas mural festival in Aurora. “Not that mural festivals can do that on their own, but they can often shed light on some of the larger issues surrounding art communities. And if we lose the art, we lose our soul. I know that’s a little high-flown, but I really believe that.”

If you want to see artists in action, check out any of the festivals happening on the Front Range next month.

Smart Street Guy

September 13-15 | Boulder | streetwisearts.org/festival

Leah Brenner Clack, founder and executive director of Street Wise Arts, estimates the festival has created about 130 murals in its five years in Boulder. “It’s a faith-based puzzle,” she said of trying to match walls, funds and artists.

“There are always enough artists,” she added.

This year’s festival features 21 artists, selected from a pool of about 250 applicants. Each artist or artistic team will create a mural about climate action. The lineup includes a mix of local and out-of-state muralists, such as Lindee Zimmer, a Tucson artist who will collaborate with the Boulder Watershed Collective to create a mural about beavers; Bruce Cook, a Haida and Arapaho artist who will be working on his first mural at the Dairy Arts Center; and local artist Kate Fitzpatrick, who describes her work as “magical wilderness art.”

“I use gold, glitter, polka dots and stars because the overall theme they convey is an incredibly beautiful world,” Fitzpatrick said of her work. “But the Street Wise theme is perfect because even though I make nature art that’s pretty and joyful, let’s not pretend that there aren’t some really scary things going on out there, too.”

Colfax Canvas

September 14 | East Colfax Avenue, between Dayton and Florence Streets, Aurora | colfaxcanvas.com/

The first edition of Colfax Canvas took place in August 2020. It was an outdoor experiment spearheaded by Aaron Vega, self-described “artistic consultant” to the city of Aurora and program director at the People’s Building, an arts center and pillar of the Aurora Creative District.

“When we started in 2020, in response to the idea that the neighborhood was ‘blighted,’ we kept hearing that word ‘blighted,’” Vega said. “The truth is, the neighborhood wasn’t pretty, but there were a lot of immigrant communities and small businesses and stores that were doing well. This (festival) was an attempt to refresh what we had so we could stop hearing that word.”

Since its inception, Colfax Canvas has funded 33 new murals in the area and created a walking tour for people to view the works in their own time. This year, 11 artists will paint five new walls.

One of the biggest challenges is finding new places to paint, Vega said. But that challenge has also forced them to communicate closely with business owners on those blocks.

“I would love to have millions and millions of dollars and not have to look for walls,” Vega said. “But that also means we have to be much more in tune with what our neighbors want and need. Now we have a credit of trust, and ultimately that’s the right currency for East Colfax.”

Welded walls

September 17-21 | WeldWorks Brewing Company, 508 Eighth Ave., Greeley | weldwalls.com/

Greeley’s first mural festival kicks off on September 17 and will feature seven artists and art teams hand-picked by Briana Harris, local artist manager, and Armando Silva, painter and muralist.

“We really want to give people from other cities an opportunity to talk to artists and have them come and say, ‘Oh, Greeley is amazing,’” Harris said.

For the inaugural festival, Harris and Silva wanted to invite both local artists, including Betony Coons and Al Frente Youth Collective, as well as out-of-towners like Denver-based Yazz Atmore and Worst Crew.

“Visual art is often a very solitary discipline,” Harris said. “Artists don’t have many opportunities to meet, improvise and work with peers. Hopefully, we facilitate that exchange between artists.”

Walls will be painted around the central campus at WeldWorks Brewing Company to provide a comfortable viewing experience for festival goers. On-site viewing is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. to match the bar and restaurant hours. There will also be special programming at various locations throughout the week in Greeley, including an artist panel at the Moxi Theater on Wednesday, September 18 and a creative networking event at the Atlas Theater on Thursday, September 19. The full schedule of programs can be found here . All events are free.

Denver Walls

October 3-4 | RiNo Arts District, Five Points, Denver | denverwalls.com/

Even though it’s new to the scene, Denver Walls is one of the largest and most well-attended festivals, considering its inaugural year drew over 150,000 attendees to the RiNo Art District.

Part of that is geography. Denver Walls is held in RiNo, a part of the Five Point neighborhood north of downtown Denver that boasts a well-established street art scene. The festival — at least geographically — replaces Crush Walls, a longtime mural festival that pulled out of the area in 2021 amid controversy.

Denver Walls also joins the international World Wide Walls series, which launched in Hawaii in 2010 and has expanded to more than 20 cities across North America, Asia, Europe and the Pacific.

Last year, the festival attracted 18 artists from seven countries, including a handful of locals. This year, the festival will feature 14 muralists and two projection experiences, as well as a variety of street art events throughout the district.

Fort Collins Mural Project

September 1-22 | Fort Collins | fcmuralproject.org

The Fort Collins Mural Project runs through September, with a volunteer mural project and two groups of artists painting for a week. The murals are painted entirely by volunteers through September 7, but there are two upcoming walks, September 14 and September 21, as well as a mural unveiling party on September 22.

Festivals of the future and distant future

Babe Walls

November 7-10 | Chamblee, Georgia | babewalls.com

While it’s not in Colorado this year, we have to mention Babe Walls, a mural festival for women and non-binary people founded by Alexandrea Pangburn, a Golden-based artist who is a part of Street Wise. Pangburn worked for the RiNo Art District for years before becoming a full-time muralist. In 2020, she organized the first Babe Walls festival in Westminster, based on persistent feedback she received from artists in RiNo that they were being overlooked for major festivals. The first two festivals were held in Westminster and Arvada. In 2022, Pangburn brought the festival to Standing Rock in North Dakota, and this year it will be held in Chamblee, Georgia.

Fraser Mountain Mural Festival

August 2025 | Fraser | explorefrasercolorado.com/fmmf

This year’s festival has already wrapped, but mark your calendars for 2025. The only mural festival that includes a cash prize. Located north of Winter Park in the town of Fraser, artists compete for the Audience and Artist Awards, which are $2,000 and $3,000 respectively. The grand prize winner, selected by the Fraser Public Arts Committee, wins a paid commission for working with a local business and up to $10,000 plus a travel stipend for the project.

KissFist Mural Festival

Tentatively September 2025

Artist Kate Fitzpatrick, who is also participating in Street Wise this year, is working to launch a new festival that will focus on the deaf community. Fitzpatrick, who is hearing, grew up with deaf parents and said she has noticed a lack of deaf or hard-of-hearing artists participating in mural festivals. “There are some barriers to access (to the deaf community) that aren’t hard to overcome, but they are frustrating if you’re deaf,” she said. “It would be great to have a festival that celebrates the culture, pays artists and is open to people who aren’t part of the community to learn a little bit more.” The festival’s name, KissFist, is a gesture in American Sign Language that means “you really love something,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s a joyful word!” Fitzpatrick plans to host her first festival in September 2025.