Towering across the wall of the Sarasota School of Arts and Sciences, a new mural depicts Irene and Lewis Colson, Black pioneers who helped shape the city’s early identity. Created by local muralist Kaitlyn Ramirez, known professionally as “Swirly Painter,” the piece is both homage and provocation: a visual restoration of two lives mostly left out of Sarasota’s public memory until recently.

“I wanted to do a historical piece,” Ramirez says. “My kids are mixed, and they deal with racism. Teaching who [the Colsons] are was a way to be part of the solution.”

The Colsons, who lived in what was once called Overtown and is now the gentrified Rosemary District, were foundational figures in Sarasota’s growth. Lewis  Colson was among Sarasota’s earliest Black settlers and assisted in platting the town in 1885. He donated the land for Bethlehem Baptist Church—Sarasota’s first Black church—and served as its pastor. Irene Colson worked as a midwife, providing critical care to the Black community, and is said to have delivered more than 1,000 babies. Their graves lie nearby in Rosemary Cemetery, and the old hotel down the street, once the city’s segregation era, Blacks-only hotel, is named in Colson's honor. It was recently saved from demolition by DreamLarge (Sarasota Magazine’s parent company) and the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation.

Ramirez, 33, came to Sarasota from Chicago in 2020, chasing the dream of painting full time. “I was always drawing,” she says. After supporting herself through "more boring jobs," she says, like waitressing and paralegal work, she went for a full-time art career, and it stuck. She's done murals at Toastique, Brewster's and, prior to last year's hurricane season, at downtown Sarasota's O'Leary's, among spots. The Colson mural, completed over a month in the heat of May and June, took about 170 hours and spans roughly 1,700 square feet. “It’s hard labor,” Ramirez says, “but I love talking to people. Everyone who drove by was so excited. That made me happy.”

Her work is part of Sarasota’s Call for Walls initiative, a new program under the city’s Public Art Plan designed to activate often times overlooked neighborhoods. Overseen by the city’s Public Art Program, the effort seeks out blank walls with public visibility, especially outside the downtown core.

“We’re trying to build a citywide strategy that goes beyond statues in roundabouts,” says Ciera Coleman, City of Sarasota’s public art manager. “If you look at our collection, 90 percent of it is in a one-mile radius of the city center. We want to change that.”

The Call for Walls initiative invites proposals from artists and property owners alike. What’s painted isn’t just about aesthetics—it must resonate with place.

 “We’re not trying to stamp the city with one vision,” Coleman says. “If we have a neighborhood group asking us for a mural, that’s a good place to start.”

The Colson mural also falls within a parallel initiative, the Florida Legacy Arts Mural Series. This effort focuses on Sarasota’s cultural lineage—honoring circus performers, architects, tourism history, and natural themes like flora and fauna. “The idea is to create pieces that align with Sarasota’s identity, but told through the voices of artists and neighborhoods," Coleman says.

The first murals completed under the Call for Walls program—painted by Sarasota-based artist David Lee in early 2024—span the alleyway of Parker Robinson Interiors near Main Street in downtown Sarasota. One mural, The Performers, features vintage circus figures like Peter Robinson and Josephine Clofullia alongside a roaring tiger and a soaring trapeze artist. Beside it, Fun in the Sun depicts a woman in a swimsuit and sun hat, crouched on a postcard-blue beach. Both pay tribute to Sarasota’s circus roots and sunny brand of nostalgia. “They were the first murals,” Coleman says. “They helped us show how we could activate places with something joyful and rooted in our identity.”

Each mural is reviewed by the city’s Public Art Committee, but artists are encouraged to bring their own vision—provided it lines up with broader community goals. “We want to involve the neighborhood,” Coleman says. “If it’s a historical figure, we connect with an expert on the person. If it’s on a school wall, we talk to the principal.”

Murals are funded through Sarasota’s Public Art Fund, which collects a 0.5 percent fee from developers of construction projects that cost more than $1 million. Developers can install art on-site and maintain it, or contribute to the Public Art Fund instead. Building owners must agree to maintain the murals for at least two years, though well-sealed works can last a decade or more.

“We’ve learned some lessons about wall condition,” Coleman says. “The artist has to trust that the wall is going to hold up, so we avoid something right next to water, or blocked by trees, for example,” she says.

For Ramirez, whose son attends Sarasota School of Arts and Sciences, the mural’s location was personal. “I was talking with the principal and asked them for a wall,” she says. “I wanted to do a Black history piece that can teach people something."

The work is signed “Swirly Painter,” a nickname Ramirez got from a cousin while she was  mixing paints in a plastic cup. “The paint started to spiral as I went up and down the ladder,” she recalls. “My cousin looked at it and said, ‘You’re a swirly painter.’ It stuck.”

She hopes people become curious about the mural and the people in it. "That’s the highest form of being," she says. "When you’re angry and you replace that anger with curiosity, you learn something instead.”

A dedication ceremony for the Colson mural is on Thursday, July 3 at 10 a.m. at the Sarasota School of Arts and Sciences, 645 Central Ave., where city representatives and Colson family descendants will attend.

Until then, it’s a monument not only to the couple and their work, but to the possibility of a city learning about itself through imagery.

“Public art isn’t just decoration," Coleman says. "It’s a way to tell our stories and learn the ones we didn’t know were there."

For more about the program, click here.