Graffiti News

Calgary muralist Rachel Lyon will paint a six-metre (20-foot) mural in front of visitors at the Calgary Fall Home Show, which runs September 25 to 27, 2026 at the BMO Centre in Calgary, Alberta. According to the Calgary Herald, the programme is called Paint with Purpose, Lyon works alongside a team of local artists across the weekend, and the finished piece is donated to the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters, a non-profit organisation in the province.

How a booth wall became an annual fixture

The Calgary Herald reports that Lyon's involvement began by accident a few years ago. An interior designer friend needed someone to paint her booth walls at a Calgary Home Show. Lyon painted them, then gave the work away and asked only for a donation to charity. The mural and the non-profit connection worked well enough that she was invited back to subsequent shows, and she has not missed one since. "It's brought me a lot of opportunities," she told the Calgary Herald.

What gets painted over the weekend

The design has not been announced. Lyon told the Calgary Herald she did not want to spoil the surprise, but the paper reports it will carry her recognisable approachable style and warm, bright colours. There is a seating area where visitors can watch the artists work, and Lyon plans to answer questions on the floor. Representatives of the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters will also be present to talk about their work, and attendees are encouraged to donate to the charity at the event.

This year Lyon has planned the mural in advance and will complete it with a team of local artists and other participants. "Sometimes I bring in people who are totally new to mural painting and I go through the process with them so they get more skills and confidence," she told the Calgary Herald. "Other times I bring in artists who already know how to paint and just want to be part of it." The objective, she said, is always the same: painting for a non-profit.

A mural designed to travel

The detail that sets this apart from most mural stories is portability. According to the Calgary Herald, each Paint with Purpose mural is created so it can be moved easily after the show and installed easily at its final destination. A mural sprayed directly onto a building exists only where it was painted; this one is painted in an exhibition hall and then carried to a shelter. It is the reverse of the usual street-art condition, where the work is fixed and the audience has to come to it.

From side project to full-time muralist

The Calgary Herald reports that Lyon is originally from Ontario, studied art briefly at OCAD University in Toronto, and moved to Calgary nine years ago. She had been making art on the side for a few years, but says the move sparked her career. She now works full-time as a mural artist, creating large-scale original work for clients including the Calgary Stampede, the Cowboys Music Festival and community associations across the city. "I've found loads of opportunities in Calgary and made so many local connections, whether it's peers, fellow artists or clients," she said.

Why it matters for street art

Live painting at a trade show turns the process into the exhibit. Visitors see the underpainting, the layering and the finishing over three days, and can ask the artist what she is doing while she does it. Bringing first-time painters into the team also shows a mural as shared labour rather than one person's signature. And deciding the destination before the first stroke solves a problem that follows a lot of event murals: what happens to the panel when the event ends. Here the answer is fixed in advance.

Event details

• Event: Calgary Fall Home Show, September 25 to 27, 2026
• Venue: BMO Centre, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
• Programme: Paint with Purpose, a six-metre mural painted live by Rachel Lyon and local artists
• Recipient: Alberta Council of Women's Shelters

If you photograph the finished piece, or Lyon's other walls around Calgary, you can pin them on the Wallscape map. The feed collects live-painting work from other cities.

Source: Calgary Herald, "Calgary Fall Home Show: Witness a mural unfolding in real time"