Chroma Collective
Young adult artists uplifting the community.
Chroma Collective is a group of creatives dedicated to empowering young artists, uplifting the voices of our community, and creating artworks that are dedicated to placekeeping practices. With more and more young people pursuing alternative career paths, Chroma Collective was designed to fill the gap in creative mentorship and professional development and expand pathways for leadership in the arts.
Interested in hiring Chroma Collective
for a mural project?
Email lindsay@creativeaction.org
Flora
Housing Authority of the City of Austin | 2025
Flora is a multiple mural project at the main offices of the Housing Authority of the City of Austin. After recent renovations of their spaces, HACA took inspiration from the different plants and flowers that can be seen near their offices or around Austin and created names for their spaces. One of these spaces is the Lantana Lounge where the main mural of this project is located featuring imagery of lantana flowers and native Texas flowers spread across the space, amongst the windows, facing a common space that HACA staff and visiting clients and partners interact with. In addition to the main mural in the Lantana Lounge, we designed and painted agaves and cacti in the booth seating areas in the same space. The agave and cacti designs continue on the second floor of their offices in two other booths that staff sit at. Surrounded by nature and color, we hope these painted additions bring a sense of calm, connection, and inspiration to all that interact with these spaces.
A World of Wonder | Explore and Discover
Open Door Preschools | 2025
This project at the Austin Open Door Preschool North location consists of two murals: A World of Wonder and Explore and Discover. A World of Wonder was inspired by and created for the children attending the preschool on the campus’ playground for the 4-5 year olds. When designing the piece we wanted to focus on what the children wanted to see while they play as well as what parents and staff were interested in having the students engage with. During our community engagement process we had a class of 4-5 year olds color pictures of what they wanted to see included in the mural. This session showed us how this age group interacted with the art: a desire for curiosity, discovery, and wonder. We also hosted an engagement session with parents and staff from the preschool who supplied us with valuable feedback about what their students enjoy and how they learn.
The main goal of this mural was for it to become a learning tool for the kids. We wanted the kids to be able to use it to fuel their imagination and be a background to the stories they create with each other as well as enhance their skills to identify familiar subjects, letters, and numbers. Depicting a wide array of people in the piece allows for kids to see themselves in the mural and having many objects keeps their focus moving from one place to another allowing for a new discovery every time they look at the wall. We made it a point to include all the numbers and an object for every letter of the alphabet as another aspect for the kids to search for and learn from.
We Live Here
Foundation Communities – Juniper Creek | 2025
We Live Here is a large-scale community-based mural located at the Foundation Communities Juniper Creek Complex. The design of We Live Here is inspired by the North Austin, North Lamar, Walnut Forest, and Walnut Creek Metropolitan Park areas in order to represent and connect with the residents of the complex and community members that pass by it.
A key component of creating this design was the community engagement Chroma Collective administered to gather community input to inform the design. We facilitated an engagement session with the afterschool youth program at the neighboring Open Door program where we invited youth ages 5-12 to add imagery to two large paintings of Austin’s metropolitan and natural scenes to express what they see and enjoy experiencing in their neighborhood and city. Doing this detailed to us of what the youth in this area would appreciate seeing featured in this mural: family, school, recreational activities, home, and more. Additionally, a few members spent an afternoon at Walnut Creek Metropolitan Park where we surveyed community members for input, which included representations of community, local landmarks, and nature. We received feedback about utilizing a bright, but earthy color scheme, ideas of including imagery of nature and acknowledging the original indigenous peoples of the land the mural is located on.
Quilted Legacies
Rosewood and Navasota | Part of Elevate Series | 2024
Quilted legacies was inspired by the stories of members of the Conley Guerro’s Senior Activity Center’s creative writing class, and their time growing up in East Austin. This mural represents a map of the Rosewood neighborhood of Austin, with each city block being represented by a square of fabric of a quilt.
Within the fabric of the quilt, there are vignettes that represent people and places that used to make up the neighborhood, such as the Rosewood neighborhood pool, where kids used to swim until their fingers were pruney. Or a scene from the Harlem Theatre, which was “the place to be” on the weekend, with everyone in the neighborhood waiting in line to get their popcorn or a famous Harlem Theatre chili burger.
One of the portraits included in the mural is that of Mr. Willie H. Walls, who was the manager of the Harlem Theatre and a World Geography teacher during the week. Another portrait features Ulysses “Doc” Young, who owned and operated Hillside Drugstore, serving the neighborhood with various remedies and medicines.
“Those are the things that made us who we are now, they are the fabric and the quilt of our lives.” -Ms. Bunny
To learn more about this series visit https://www.youraudiotour.com/tours/artbox-archives/
Memorias
Pedernales and Chicon | Part of Elevate Series | 2024
This mural is centered around the memories of longtime East Austin resident Lupe Garcia. She shared with us her memories of a community that has always come together to share food, music, and include youth from as long as she can remember. Two panels capture Rue, a medicinal plant often used for limpias or energetic cleansing, inspired by her stories of creating plant based remedies growing up. Other panels feature musicians, cooking tortillas, and other representations of community gathering and support. She believes that when people come together to share their compassion and strength you can empower a community.
Ms. Lupe grew up in East Austin is the President of the Housing Authority of the City of Austin’s Resident Council, a title she has held for the past 4 years. She is the founder of a Women’s Conference called, Woman’s Mind at Ease, which is in its 8th year. She also created the nonprofit, IMoms which provides leadership and growth opportunities for an intergenerational community of Mothers. She coordinates the food pantry, backpack Drive, and Christmas donation events annually for the Santa Rita Courts community. Lupe also runs an advisory group of residents at Santa Rita Courts. She is dedicated to supporting the community and is grateful for partners and residents that collectively come together to make these opportunities possible.
To learn more about this series visit https://www.youraudiotour.com/tours/artbox-archives/
Chroma Collective
Want to hire us for a project?
Email lindsay@creativeaction.org