The daily commute of Arlington residents will soon get a little less boring — or at least more colorful.
Over the next few months, local artist Colton Canava will paint murals near Lamar Street, Fielder Street and North Cooper Street coinciding with Arlington’s 150th anniversary celebration.
He’s already started at a wall along North Cooper Street. He said he will probably finish that piece in a week and complete all of the murals by November.
Canava has already seen a positive response from locals.
“They’re really excited about the artwork,” Canava said as he swept his paintbrush across a wall. “Being a part of helping to maybe shift the mindset of murals and art, public art specifically, is huge.”
The resident has already worked on other nearby murals, including a World Cup-themed piece in the Arlington Museum of Art and a mural inside Arlington Coffee Roasters.
The anniversary project is different.
Canava’s inspiration for the murals came from the city’s natural spaces, he said. One of the early concepts was a mural of the Entertainment District, but that was later separated from the project.
“I was really drawn to River Legacy (Park),” Canava said. “Even my house, we just have so many trees. There’s, obviously, a life outside the Entertainment District: the nature, ecosystem, animals. I was really drawn to that and learning a bit more about what existed before Arlington, what is native to the area.”
A car passes by a new mural near North Cooper Street on Aug. 13, 2026. (Chris Moss | Arlington Report)
Each mural will represent a different piece of Arlington’s natural landscape. The piece on North Cooper Street will highlight animals and ground-level plant life representative of the Texas Blackland Prairie ecological region, which encompasses portions of east Tarrant County and Arlington.
“Each of them will be the same style: animals, life, etc., but it’ll have a different color palette and a different design,” Canava said. “The only connective tissue is the concept.”
Council member Mauricio Galante’s district encompasses the location of the North Cooper Street mural.
He notes that the murals aren’t random — each one sits at a gateway to a different part of town. The murals, along with other 150th anniversary celebrations, are funded through the Arlington Tomorrow Foundation, the city’s charitable arm.
Galante decided to try and commission Canava after meeting him during the Arlington Coffee Roasters ribbon-cutting ceremony. Since then, Canava has been working to bring the vision to life.
“He came out better than expected because he has a soft touch in everything he does. He doesn’t overpower visually, and he doesn’t overexpress the idea,” Galante said. “You have the forest and the animals, they are beautifully displayed in a way that is not tiring for you to see, and when you drive, it’s not such a distraction.”
The murals also serve as a beautification effort. Galante and Canava said the walls where the murals will go were often tagged with graffiti.
A new mural on North Cooper Street in North Arlington is pictured on Aug. 14, 2026. (Chris Moss | Arlington Report)
“We should ask ourselves: What is the Arlington standard?” Galante said. “Are we going to allow those big, concrete walls to be there being graffitied all the time and cleaned up without taking the opportunity to express ourselves and pass on the idea of who we are for the future generations and visitors?”
“Or are we gonna do something about it? Take the opportunity and invest a little bit in public art and have something that we can be proud of ourselves.”
For Canava, that feeling of leaving something for future generations has stuck.
“Everybody wants to make their mark or be known or remembered by something,” Canava said.
Chris Moss is a reporter for the Arlington Report. Contact him at chris.moss@arlingtonreport.org.
Disclosure: Arlington Coffee Roasters is a financial supporter of the Arlington Report. At the Arlington Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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