One morning this spring, as dawn broke over the mountains in southern Colorado, Valrie Eisemann loaded her truck with paint and climbing gear and drove about 65 miles to her canvas: a concrete wall angling high above the Arkansas River.

She arrived at her place along the Pueblo Levee Mural Project.

In recent years years, Eisemann has been among artists rappelling down the 30-foot wall in an effort to reclaim a record. Guinness World Records listed the Pueblo Levee as the largest outdoor mural for almost 20 years before the wall came down for reconstruction.

The Pueblo Levee Mural Project is more than just an effort to reclaim a record though.

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“This is what can come out of something that’s terrible,” Eisemann said. “It shows that something can come out of tragedy and become something beautiful.”

Tragedy overwhelmed Pueblo in 1921. That June, the Arkansas swelled and roared, destroying much of the town and claiming hundreds of lives.

The levee was built in the flood’s wake. It would span nearly 3 miles between the river and the city’s core. It would rise about 65 feet. And over the decades, it would be covered in paint — by vandals, as some saw them. Cynthia Ramu knew them as artists.

She started painting along the wall in the 1980s. “People were like, ‘You’re doing that graffiti,’” she recalled, “and I was like, ‘Hey! We’re in the Guinness Book of World Records! What are you talking about?’”

The record was largely thanks to her. Ramu built relationships with naysayers, with the governmental approving powers that be, and she rallied artists to fill blanks and expand the colorful scene reflecting atop the river.

Over the years, Ramu saw the project make lifelong friends out of strangers. She saw young, struggling people find purpose. Artists would sleep in their vans or in her yard. They were amateurs and professionals from near and far, some continuing careers and others using the wall to launch one.

There was a physical strain to painting along the 45-degree angle, but there was also mental and emotional relief. There was something about the fresh air, the rushing river below, the birdsong. There was a chance to leave a legacy.

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Ramu met a woman who was dying. “She said, ‘I always wanted to do a piece on the wall.’ And I said, ‘I can make that happen.’”

The record was marked in 1995: a mural occupying about 200,000 square feet. The record stood until 2014. That’s when work started to replace the crumbling levee.

Ramu watched murals jackhammered, watched the wall drop to its new 30-foot height, half its original, vibrant expanse. She often cried.

“It was like watching my life go down the river,” she said.

Construction finished in 2020. Then Ramu got to work.

She got to work with the Pueblo Conservancy District overseeing the levee. Early talks were tense, Ramu recalled.

“To some, it was still just graffiti,” she said. “They were like, ‘Maybe we don’t want anything on the wall.’”

Whether the lawyers and engineers liked it or not, the artists were coming, Ramu suggested. “I said, ‘If we created a process, I would be glad to help you figure it out.’”

An application process was created. Artists would submit proposals adhering to a set of guidelines while also waiving liability.

More than 100 artists have been approved over the past four years, some from as far as Canada and New York. Most are close by, including Shannon Palmer, the artist known as Deadhand.

The levee, she said, represents “the resilience” of her hometown. And it represents something more, she said: “It’s the heart of Pueblo.”

The heart started beating in the ‘70s. A teenaged, ragtag bunch known as the Tee Hees would paint the levee under the cover of night. Their flashlights alerted police. The Tee Hees were known to escape by hopping the adjacent train.

Nonsense, thought local artist Dave Roberts.

“He believed in supporting creativity and bringing people together,” Ramu said. “Someone needed to stand up, and he stood up.”

Roberts negotiated the first deal with the Pueblo Conservancy District. He held an annual Paint-A-Thon.

“He would show up with a bunch of paint from the recycle store, and people could just grab it and go paint whatever they wanted,” Ramu said.

Roberts died in 2021, just as the new era of the Pueblo Levee Mural Project was beginning. He would be proud, Ramu thinks. But it’s not quite the Paint-A-Thon he knew.

As outlined in the application, artists must abide by certain themes — largely related to local nature, history and industry. The aim is to prevent anything that might be considered offensive.

Ramu understands as a diplomat. As an artist, she worries about expression being suppressed. “I fight a lot,” she said.

But the project is not about fighting, she knows. She knows it to be about the contrary — the theme of the mural being painted one morning this spring.

Eisemann arrived to finish her mandala, a splash of pink and white around a yellow circle like the sun. “Power in unity” would be the words in the center.

“Which is what this whole project is about for me,” Eisemann said. “It’s people coming together and showing strength in community.”