Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…

The foggy glass window transforms into the vibrant pinks, purples and blues of a sleeping dragon. With each undulating paint stroke, Stephanie Li lets the mural take shape, creating a story on a once empty canvas. 

“I think every blank space is an opportunity to be beautified by someone’s imagination and creativity,” Li said. 

Li painted the mural for Harvard Convenience in 2023 as a partnered artist with Murals in Motion. The Allston-based art program began in 2021 by Allston Village Main Streets (AVMS), a local non-profit organization, as part of their core mission to beautify, promote and economically develop the Allston Village business district.  

Alex Cornacchini, the executive director of AVMS, said “we realized that the more murals in the neighborhood there are, the less graffiti there is.” 

To obtain a mural through the program, Cornacchini said AVMS reaches out to a business in Allston, or the business requests a mural. The business owner then decides on which artist that they want to work with from a curated list. 

When they first created Murals in Motion, AVMS put out open calls for local artists in the neighborhood through social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, as well as in artist newsletters. The organization accepts most applicants to make sure they have a diverse list of artistic styles for businesses to choose from, according to Cornacchini. 

The process of designing a mural is unique to every artist-business partnership. Cornacchini said, after being paired with an artist, some businesses have a clear vision of their mural’s design whereas others let the artist take their own creative liberty. 

For Li, she sketched out a couple of design ideas, inspired by the digital art series she was working on at the time, and presented them to the owners of Harvard Convenience (157 Brighton Ave). Since there were a lot of Asian restaurants in the neighborhood, they decided on the dragon theme. AVMS ultimately contributed to refining the composition of the artwork and choosing the purple color scheme. 

“I would say that the creation of the design felt very special to me,” Li said. She explained how she loved all the elements of the mural, but her favorite was the two people sitting atop the dragon on the hill. 

“I think it symbolizes this courage to go on journeys or adventures, no matter what the obstacles might be, and to do that in a community with others,” Li said. 

Once the design is finalized, the murals can take either days or weeks to complete, depending on the artwork. For Li’s mural, she enlisted the help of fellow artists Jane Kim-Testa and Amanda Huang. Together, they painted the mural in two days. 

On the other hand, Cornacchini said the artist Eric Funk, who created the Brazilian Worker Center’s (14 Harvard Ave) mural, spent at least a month planning and two weeks painting it. 

Once a mural is finished, Cornacchini explained, they put a clear veneer over the mural to seal it in because “sometimes murals get graffitied over, and it costs a lot more to have the artist come back and repaint it than it does to wash off the graffiti.” 

The Massachusetts Cultural Council grant funds this program, helping these local artists and businesses. They are able to contribute 2,000 dollars to each mural, according to Cornacchini. 

“Some of the barriers to murals are a lack of funding,” Cornacchini said. Without these grants, Cornacchini explained, some of these businesses cannot otherwise afford murals, further limiting opportunities for artists in Allston to start their careers.

Through the program, there are now ten completed murals and 15 partnered artists. Looking forward, Cornacchini said that they have enough funding for five to eight more murals, but hope to get some more funding to keep the project going. 

Across the street from Harvard Convenience, One Stop Cleaners (94 Harvard Ave) owner Julie Tran decided to install a mural in front of her own business after Cornacchini approached her with the idea. She wanted a mural that was representative of her home country, Vietnam, and worked on a lotus design with artist Simone Nemes, who painted the mural. 

Tran said the mural she had installed through Murals in Motion is good for her because drivers who stop at the traffic light near her business take a look at it. She encourages people to contact AVMS for those interested. 

Li said it is so powerful to see murals “espouse certain values or ideals” or “transport you to different worlds.” 

“It makes you believe in that magic in the world.” ■