PAINTING MURALS IS A DELIGHT, TO ME. A way to participate in the built environment. A barrier-free piece of art for the whole community, created for a specific place. A way to make anyplace into a Place (with a capital P). My murals are often about this community, about the ways that all of us belong within larger contexts. Every built space is inside of an ecosystem, which humans are inextricably tied to. What are all the ways that we can remember this belonging - to each other, to this context, to this place, to these neighbors, human and beyond?
For inquiries or to set up a complementary consultation, please email caroooart@gmail.com
The seabirds greeted the moon
the seabirds greeted the moon
When the Sun hangs low over the Great Salt Lake, the full moon rises over the shoulder of Olympus. The Wasatch stand as sentinels, over the ancient sea, a sea that existed before the mountains did- (can you imagine, bearing witness to time so vast?). They keep memories of the centuries, cycling ever-past. Their gem-bodies catch the rainbows of the sunset sky, brightest in the fading light. Their hearts carry water, bound for our reservoirs and bellies and eventually for the great salt lake. The many many lake beings (seabirds, microbialites, brine shrimp, flies, pronghorn, saltgrass, harrier, us) know that the water is precious.
The seabirds carry their raucous opera up towards the moon, they pass along the crest of the Wasatch on their way. They say hello to the water in the aqueous hearts of these mountains, they say hello to the prismatic facets of granite. They say hello to the canyons carved by glaciers and by rivers, carved into existence simply by continuing.
I hope that this mural reminds you that we all belong, we are part of it, this enormous and unfathomable and humming march of time, this tightly woven network of living things. May we remain aware of where all the threads that hold us up come from. May we remain aware of the threads we weave, and where they go.
Created for the Ballpark Community Reinvestment Agency, and Salt Lake City.
Appx 30’ x 60’ , Latex on EIFS, 2025
the sun, the moon, and everything between
The sun, the moon, and everything between
DABS Utah, Marriott-Slaterville
The Wasatch Moutains, and the Great Salt Lake, forever in conversation, forever entwined. There is a difference between nautical twilight and dawn, they brush against each other as the blueness is eclipsed by the sun. Water from the aqueous heart of Ben Lomond bound eventually for the lake, and its many sea-bound islands, as with most water in the region.
The sun as it rises pulled up by pelicans (I had a dream about this once), one of the many migratory species that rely on the lake for survival. To be in the mountains, still locked in springtime snow, and witness the pelicans drifting in their V, seemingly too big of birds to be that graceful, makes u cry sometimes, you know? Seabirds and snowy crags, seeming opposites (as always) holding hands.
At its heart, this piece is about existing within cycles, honoring togetherness and inextricability. The pelicans are hope-bearers. The sun and the full moon greet each other once a month this way, as old neighbors. We belong to each other, lest we forget.
Appx. 1,300 sqft, latex on drywall, 2025
The smallest things; the biggest; the dance that happens between them
The smallest things; the biggest; and the dance that happens between them
Park City Enginehouse Apartments
A love letter to the Wasatch Back- the view from Clayton and the blues upon blues into the distance. The mountains write poems through the air in shades of blue, the Steller’s Jays flash vivid right before us. There is this push and pull between distance and here-ness. Being in the mountains, we somehow get to experience both. The nearby and the faraway. We meet it all in the middle. We are a tiny set of eyeballs and wrists and legs on top of a line of topography and we bear witness to it all, silent as the moon as it rises. Silent as the datura as they open.
For the new affordable housing build in Park City, Utah - with assistance from the Youth Art Academy at the Kimball Arts Center
Appx 8’ - 11’ x 180’, latex on cast concrete, 2025
THE MOON AS A SLOWLY AMBLING WITNESS, OVER AMETHYST BASIN
THE MOON AS A SLOWLY AMBLING WITNESS, OVER AMETHYST BASIN
Los Muros On Main : Midvale Mural Festival, UT
Opposites across our hours, opposites walking loop-step with one another, opposites singing in perfect harmony, loud+soft, the way that silence feels. Full, humming, vibrating.
Holding two very unlike things simultaneously: I think they call that grace.
Or, maybe joy.
Or, maybe dancing.
Or- best one yet- maybe living.
We remember when the moon greets the sun across the cirque at opposite ends of their hours. We remember when we scream at the lights they make on the shale, the way a gasp so big sometimes feels like bellowing, /look at ALL THIS/
A gasp so big feels like remembering that we are, indeed, part of ALL THIS (how could we forget!), all these opposites, with all our griefs and our hopes, and aboves and belows, all our befores and our afters, but mostly our (right nows)
The tightrope arced through time we walk, breathing the way the sky does.
53’x25’ latex on stucco, 2025
woods rose and bees, for the city i love
woods rose and bees, for the city i love
Ballpark Library Lab, Salt Lake City, UT
There are so many ways that love among humans looks, and public libraries are the TOP of that list, in my opinion. The way that bees lovingly fly among flowers, along our river corridors. There are over a thousand native bee species in Utah, which is more than the entire eastern seaboard. Isn’t that crazy?
Photo by Jeri Jonise. Image courtesy of Salt Lake City Public Library
(plus, a little matching ‘ideas’ mailbox)
86’ x 8’ Latex on unprimed brick, 2025
CASTILLEJA BIKERACK
BONNEVILLE BOULEVARD BIKERACK
Salt Lake City, UT
When the paintbrushes are out, you know it’s trail season. It won’t snow anymore, hopefully. Trail systems surrounding Salt Lake City are the main way I define my relationship to this place, to our context.
Photo by Logan Sorenson. Image courtesy of Salt Lake City Arts Council's Public Art Program
Moonrise from powerhouse
Mural for Flex ETC - a coworking and flexible warehouse space in Salt Lake City, UT
jordan river nursery
Sweetest view of the Wasatch, above the Jordan River | 11’x8’, latex on drywall , 2025
Afternoon at yellowbranch falls
afternoon at yellowbranch falls
Residential Mural in Salem, SC
Southern Appalachia is something special: a waterfall everywhere you look, sometimes the forest breaking long enough to see the ancient glacier-smooth granite beneath. My heart is a blue ridge mountain, as they say.
9’x17’, latex on drywall, 2025
last lights on sundial
last lights on sundial
Created on commission for Momentum Climbing, Fort Union, UT
The last lights in the Lake Blanche and Sundial cirque never get old, like this staying to say bye to the departing sun, swimming towards the horizon in the valley far below. running down over roots with a headlamp descending into darkness in the afterwards its own form of prayer, in the tunnel of aspens you hear but can’t quite see.
14’x26’ Latex on drywall, 2025
MOONRISE OVER GEMINI BRIDGES
Moonrise Over Gemini Bridges
Public Art Project for the City of Moab
*It is like this: the way that someone that loves you brings you a bouquet and puts them on the kitchen table. The way that someone loves you makes a meal, slowly, carefully. The land is like this: someone who knows and loves you, presenting gift after gift. The morning light on the rocks, the birds singing their songs. The sound of water carving a canyon over millennia. The sand underfoot so soft and quiet. The toughest flowers blooming and clinging to cliffs, hidden bouquets that worked really really hard to be here. For you. The difference is noticing.
When the doors of perception present themselves, may we continue to walk through. May we let ourselves feel cared for and loved by the world we live in. The world loves you back. It tells you every second of every day*
9’ x 30’ Latex on Wood Paneling, 2024
THE WASATCH FROM OLYMPUS TO LONE PEAK
the Wasatch from olympus to lone peak
Private Residence Exterior House Wrap, Millcreek, Utah
The Wasatch range curls in subtle violet grayscale around four rear wall surfaces, framing the backyard. Colorscale matches the original house color.
365 Square Feet, various dimensions, 2024
sunset kaleidoscope
Residential stairwell mural, last lights on Grand Teton.
Latex on Drywall, Kamas, UT
LONE PEAK DREAMSCAPE
Lone peak dreamscape
Created on commission for Momentum Climbing, Lehi UT
The Wasatch in late winter crystallizes in ice, the peaks are sharp, they beckon climbing. As the days grow longer, the thaw feels imminent.
12’ x 51’ Latex on Drywall, 2024
Lilies and laurels for magna
lilies and laurels for magna
Exterior public art commission for the city of Magna, UT
This mural speaks to the community in the small town on the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake, the sunsets that happen on the westernmost side of the Salt Lake valley, a sense of home and belonging. Sego lilies are the state flower of Utah, nestled amongst laurel leaves, which are a nod to the Greek and Italian immigrant communities that call Magna home.
~20’x80’ Latex on OSB, 2023
olympus at dusk
olympus at dusk
Interior mural for the yoga space at Momentum Climbing, Millcreek UT
35x14’ Latex on Drywall, 2023
the birds drew a doorway, and we walked through
THE BIRDS DREW a doorway, AND WE WALKED THROUGH
Painted for the South Salt Lake Muralfest and the City of South Salt Lake
Once upon a time, I was walking in the foothills and stopped on a ridge all by myself, to look around & go wow. A few steps in front of me, magpies began shooting in an arc from one side of the ridge to the other, one by one. I watched, and I watched for longer, and they kept coming, a clockwork parade & me the onliest witness. Perhaps 15 magpies later I wondered whether I should do it, whether I should walk forward beneath the doorway they seemed to be drawing. I felt almost hesitant! What does it mean! What portal am I entering into!
&& suddenly, I walked through. Stopped again. Looked around. After walking through the magpie door I thought, the world MUST be different on the other side. Shinier, full of mystery and colors so bright they hurt your eyes. I looked around expecting the world to suddenly be magic and then it WAS.
The doors of perception I suppose! Occasionally we realize we can open our eyes all the way, the world is changed into magic just because of NOTICING. What a gift, the birds bring to us. Here we all are. May we choose to walk through the doors as they present themselves.
~9’ x 57’ Latex on CMU, 2023
before, again, now, always
BEFORE, AGAIN, NOW, ALWAYS
Interior Mural at Park City Yoga Collective/ Kimball Junction, Utah
This painting is about the cycling of all things, beginnings becoming endings becoming beginnings. It is a sacred endeavor to be in the circle called living, sometimes a frightening one. Among the dangerous and beautiful things we learn about and wander among, safety in the center. Safety, calm, knowledge that everything that feels over is made anew, nothing created nor destroyed (energy, matter, experiences, elsewise). We remember about these hearts, minds, bodies of ours. we remember how to feel safe inside it all, painful bits included. Gravity is never not holding us safe. Moonflowers bloom right when the sun goes to sleep, the moon opens and closes her face, month by month marching. the rhythms to remember, the rhythms to dance with. All of it, chaos. All of it, music.
32’x15’ Latex on Drywall, 2022
milkweed and monarchs
milkweed and monarchs
Commission by the Salt Lake City Public Library for the Sprague Branch, installed in a window well.
5.5’ x 20’ Spraypaint and latex on concrete, 2023
sprague childrens library
Window Well Mural Series - a rainbow of local flora to the Salt Lake Valley including castilleja, fireweed, and lupine.
the memory of light at a doorstep
The Memory of light at a doorstep
Created for the Midvale Muralfest, 2022
This mural is about transition and trust. A transition is a threshold, a before and an after. The doorstep of transition is a place, not just a boundary. When I am in transitions, choosing Big Things for myself, sometimes the change happens quick, the trust comes quick. Sometimes I am meandering in the forest for a while, finding a path through the trees. (Not lost, never lost). Meandering and wandering is also a direction. A wiggly, windy one where I have gotten to smell the forest in summertime, look up at the sky and see the boughs of trees making strangely shaped windows. I have gotten to hear the birds and bug footsteps among the roots. This path is indirect but it is beautiful and it is uniquely mine, as any transition is for any person. There’s trust that’s learned, there. Trust in oneself that we will get someplace eventually, and trust that (turns out) we are always already in a place. Stop for a second, look around. A small moment in the chaos to take stock. What color are the trees, the plants, the water? Look where we are, look how far we have come, look how beautiful. A place made of light. Don’t forget, gravity is never not holding you safe. Don’t forget, the world loves you back. This place you’re in, whatever place, loves you back.
Next to El Potrero Market off of Main Street
17’x10’ Freehanded Latex on Stucco, 2022
myceliation station
Created for the Mobile Moon Co-op, West Valley UT, summer 2022. This project was made possible by the Salt Lake City Arts Council.
Mushrooms are an excellent metaphor for community, growing organically and strengthening bonds underneath the surface. These dense and interconnected networks eventually grow fruit, in the right conditions. Strong community makes a stronger, more just, and more equitable cultural landscape. How can we better lean on each other and listen to one another? How can our care for each other move slowly enough to grow the mycelium?
7’x10’ Latex on OSB, 2022