Joy. Hope. Love.
2025 Street Wise Mural Festival
Location: Northwest corner of First United Methodist Church facing Lucile's Creole Cafe, 1421 Spruce, Boulder, CO 80302
Photos by Jeff Goldberg, Yukai Tomsovic, and Alyssa Mora
Alyssa Mora’s Joy. Hope. Love. perfectly embodies the theme of Joy as Resistance for #2024SWMF.
A giant coneflower stretches upward toward the sun and boldly proclaims “Joy is resistance. Hope is discipline. Love is courage." The message emphasizes joy, hope, and love as requiring everyday action. The flower seemingly grows from the concrete sidewalk beneath it, emphasizing the optimistic power of Alyssa’s message.
Alyssa works in a bold and graphic manner, using a natural color palette of brick red, sage green, lavender, and yellow. The orange spiky center, lavender petals, and sage stem mimic the colors of coneflowers found throughout Boulder, while the dark red background allows the flower to pop off of the wall. The artist is also a graphic designer, a practice that influences her murals. This mural in particular utilizes various typographies and handlettering that Alyssa also employs in her graphic design work.
When she learned of the theme of Joy as Resistance, Alyssa knew she wanted to feature flowers as symbols of resilience and growth, which the act of resistance requires. “Flowers also bring me a lot of joy in my life and I love having them at home and seeing them out in the world,” says Alyssa. “When I was looking into different flowers and their symbolism, the cone flower stood out as a symbol of resilience. I love how they look like they're standing with pride and looking up towards the sky, it felt like the perfect fit for the message.”
Considered a sacred plant, purple coneflowers have a rich history of medicinal use by Native Americans, who used it to treat fevers, sore throats, and insect and snake bites. Bees and butterflies love these flowers, increasing pollination and the surrounding ecosystems. Additionally, coneflowers are drought resistant plants, perfect for semi-arid environments like the Front Range. These traits lend themselves to the coneflower being a symbol of strength, resilience, and vibrancy.
About the Artist:
Alyssa Mora is a graphic designer and artist, born and raised in Denver, CO. Alyssa has a BFA in Communication Design from Metropolitan State University of Denver. As a designer, she has a love for typography and hand-lettering, which she often includes in her work. Her work is inspired by positive affirmations, social justice issues, and anything that inspires connection and community.
Although graphic design is her 9-5, Alyssa loves to get creative and finds joy in exploring other mediums like painting, tufting, and jewelry making.