Walk down Zerex Street and you will pass two buildings that tell the same story differently. On the wall of Camber Brewery, a floating astronaut holds the hand of another space explorer while a space-suited dog leaps out of the composition and a moose plushy drifts past. On the wall of Fraser Valley Distilling, a moose and birds share space with stacked whiskey barrels. Both murals are permanent. Both came directly out of the Fraser Mountain Mural Festival. Neither was planned that way from the start.
That is the part the generic version of this story misses. The festival is not an annual event that leaves town on Sunday evening. It is the mechanism by which Fraser is slowly, deliberately, building a permanent outdoor art collection — one building wall at a time.
How the Pipeline Works
The festival, run by the Town of Fraser and the Fraser Public Arts Committee, brings artists from around the country to paint 8-by-8-foot panels scattered across downtown over a single weekend. Judges, peers, and the public all vote. Cash prizes go to the top finishers. But the grand prize is different: it is a paid commission to create a permanent mural on a local Fraser business, with the Fraser PAC, the artist, and the business owner collaborating on the concept. The commission is worth up to $10,000.
Western slope artist Jeremy Velasquez won that prize at the 2025 festival and spent the following week turning Camber Brewery's exterior wall into the space-themed scene now visible from the street — a work that references owner Nick Crabb's dogs by name and contains, per Velasquez, "a few hidden easter eggs." Denver artist Gus Rey did not win a prize at all in 2025, but Fraser Valley Distilling contacted him afterward and commissioned a mural directly. The festival functioned as an audition even for artists who did not place.
Steve Fitzgerald, president of Fraser Valley Arts and a Fraser PAC member, noted in October 2025 that the competition pool has grown significantly — roughly 80 applicants compete for 30 spots, and narrowing the field has become the hard part. The festival has been growing competitive enough that Gus Rey's application was rejected in both 2024 and 2025 before he secured a spot as a late replacement.
The Town's Parallel Track
The festival is not the only supply line. The Fraser Mural Program offers grant funding directly to property owners who want to add murals to their buildings. The purpose, per the town's own language, is to turn ordinary spaces into community landmarks and define the downtown area. That program runs independently of the festival calendar, which means the collection grows on two timelines simultaneously.
The result, as of late 2025, is that murals appear throughout town in enough density that the festival's own materials distribute a map so attendees can find them all.
August 7–9, 2026: What Is New This Year
The 2026 Fraser Mountain Mural Festival runs August 7–9. Artists check in Friday morning and paint through Saturday evening. The format is unchanged from prior years: 8-by-8-foot primed panels provided by Fraser PAC, no projectors, two full days, weather-dependent extension to painting hours.
One thing is different. The festival is adding a new award called Fraser Favorite — created specifically to give local community members a formal judging role separate from the existing People's Choice vote. In previous years, residents could vote for their favorite panel. The Fraser Favorite formalizes that community voice as a named, standalone award. The festival's existing prize structure already includes a People's Choice first place of $3,500, second place of $2,000, third place of $1,000, and an Artists Choice award of $3,500 voted on solely by participating artists. The grand prize commission remains up to $10,000.
On Sunday, August 9, the Fraser Artisan Bazaar runs noon to 4 p.m. across Fraser Valley Distilling, Simple Coffee, Birdie Lounge, and High Country Autumn's Nest — a second layer of local commerce woven directly into the festival weekend. The online mural auction opens Saturday at noon and closes Sunday at 5 p.m. for anyone who wants to take a panel home.
The Concert Series That Runs All Summer
The art scene is not limited to one August weekend. From early July through late August, Old Schoolhouse Park hosts the Picnic in the Park concert series every Tuesday evening from 6 to 8 p.m. Admission is free. The format is simple: bring your own food, find a spot on the grass, and listen to a rotating lineup of local musicians. Dogs are welcome on leash. The park sits next to Fraser Town Hall on Fraser Avenue, which means the murals on nearby buildings are visible from the concert lawn.
The 2025 festival awards party was also held at Old Schoolhouse Park, with live music by the band Dealer Takes Four following the close of voting. The park functions as the social center of Fraser's cultural calendar in a way that no single venue does.
Where This Is Heading
Fraser Valley Arts is working toward something larger than panels and paint. The organization is raising funds for the Fraser Center for Creative Arts — a permanent facility planned to include community studio space, a gallery, and a performing arts space capable of hosting musicians, comedians, and events like Japanese drum corps performances. As of October 2025, the organization needed an estimated $2 million more to break ground. Fitzgerald indicated that construction could begin as early as 2027, depending on how quickly the remaining funds are raised.
The mural festival is, among other things, a fundraising vehicle for that center. Each year's auction proceeds and festival revenue move the project closer. The outdoor collection being assembled on Zerex Street and elsewhere is both the product and the proof of concept — evidence that Fraser can support a permanent arts institution because it has already been building one, one wall at a time, for years.
The "Leaving Planet Earth" Thread
There is a phrase you will encounter if you spend time reading about Fraser's art scene: "leaving planet Earth." It appears in Velasquez's mural concept, in the town's unofficial motto, and in the way locals describe the community's creative spirit relative to the ski resort towns nearby. Fraser has never positioned itself as a polished destination. The phrase captures something real about how the town has approached public art: eccentric, locally specific, and unbothered by the conventions of resort-town aesthetics.
Velasquez said he wanted to inject meaning into the Camber Brewery mural, and that art should make you stop and think. The finished work — a galaxy scene with hidden references to a specific dog named Moose — is not what most mountain towns commission for their brewery walls. That is exactly the point.
The outdoor collection Fraser is assembling is not interchangeable with what you would find in Breckenridge or Steamboat. It is made by artists who competed to be here, painted in public over two days, and in some cases stayed to paint again.
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