Poudre River Mural at Bas Bleu

Community-Based Art Connecting People to the River

*Our newest mural project is located at the Bas Bleu Theater in Old Town Fort Collins! Area outlined in red will be painted.*

About the Project

Located in the heart of Old Town Fort Collins on the historic Bas Bleu Theatre Company building, this mural aims to celebrate the ecological, cultural, and community significance of the Poudre River, Northern Colorado’s shared lifeline.

While the river sits just minutes from downtown, it often remains underrepresented in Fort Collins’ built environment despite being central to the region’s history, ecology, agriculture, drinking water, recreation, and identity. This project seeks to make that connection more visible through public art.

About the Artist

Chelsea Gilmore is a Fort Collins based installation artist, muralist, community art maker, arts educator, and advocate. Her art is whimsical, colorful, organic, and playful, returning us to a childlike state of play and wonder. Her current body of work focuses on water, ancestry, and the dreamy nature of memory. Chelsea grew up in the mountains of Colorado where she developed a deep sense of identity with the natural world and the vast and varied landscapes of Colorado. With a BFA in sculpture and minors in environmental studies and agriculture, along with four years of intensive study into regional botany and herbalism, she has focused deeply on weaving together a sense of belonging with the natural landscape and with the processes of material manipulation and place making through art.

Chelsea serves across Colorado as an arts enrichment educator and community artist bringing large-scale collaborative murals and sculptures to schools and community spaces. She has been an immersive artist for fifteen years, a muralist for ten, and she is a Colorado Creative Industries Change Leader, while working with a handful of arts nonprofits in Northern Colorado. Chelsea's art encourages creative and intersectional conversations—bridging the gap between art, environment, and community. She is the arts and events manager at Wolverine Farm Publick House (just around the corner from this river mural) and has lived in Fort Collins for 15 years, primarily because of the undeniable magnetism she feels to the Poudre River.

Submit Your Affirmations to the River!

We encourage community members to submit affirmations to the river that will be incorporated into the mural as part of the artist’s doodle grid. Please use the form below to submit your affirmations by Sept. 7, 2026.

What is a “doodle grid”?? A doodle grid is a technique muralists use to scale up artwork. Instead of measuring precise squares, an artist covers a wall with random doodles, numbers, or shapes (or words of affirmation!). They take a photo of the wall, digitally overlay their design on top of it, and use the random marks as visual reference points to hand-draw the correct proportions.

Completed Murals

Chappelow Arts Magnet School - What Does the River Know? (2023)

The first mural in this series, completed by 8th grade students at Chappelow Arts Magnet School in Evans, CO, in collaboration with local artist Armando Silva, Greeley-Evans School District 6, and Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed (CPRW), melded science and art to create a piece of art that will be enjoyed by the community for years to come.

Over the summer and fall of 2023, students from Mrs. Myers’ 8th grade art class worked with Armando to design and paint this 8x10’ mural that will be displayed at Chappelow for years to come. The design process started with several in-class workshops and a field trip to the Poudre Learning Center. Following this hands-on and interactive trip to the Poudre River, students continued working with Armando to design and paint a mural that represents their connection to the river and their community.

Thank you to the Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed, Armando Silva, the Poudre Heritage Alliance, Greeley-Evans School District 6, and the Poudre Learning Center for supporting this project.

Eastman Park Mural - The Four Directions (2024-2025)

Working with the Town of Windsor and Denver-based artist Kristina Maldonado Badhand, this second mural in our Poudre River Mural series brings a beautiful piece of public art to the newly completed Eastman Park Phase II along the Poudre River in Windsor, CO.

Artist Statement: This mural uses rich symbolism to represent the four cardinal directions and the cycle of life. The East stands for beginnings and wisdom, marked by the dawn. The South symbolizes growth and nurturing, featuring native plants like natural grasses found in the park and chokecherry and cottonwood. The North honors ancestors and inner healing, with images of milkweed, monarch butterflies, and stars—referencing beliefs that monarchs guide souls on their journey after death and that the road beyond is along the stars. The West represents power, water, and the passage into the spirit world, where thunderstorms originate. A mosaic design symbolizes the Poudre River, followed by simple beadwork and ribbon-like stripes. The base includes blue to represent the water of the river. The mosaic designs on the corners are to emulate beadwork and have star designs- seven on the black side for the seven sacred ceremonies. Colors like Black, Red, Yellow, and White stand for the four directions, while Blue represents the sky, Green the earth, and Purple the spirit.