‘Dream come true’: Emma Gilbert completes new mural at Alabaster’s Patriots Park
Published 5:07 pm Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Local artist and Alabaster native Emma Gilbert has completed work on a new mural for Alabaster’s Patriots Park. (For the Reporter/Jeremy Raines)
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By NOAH WORTHAM | Managing Editor
ALABASTER – Standing high up in the air on a boom lift while wearing headphones, artist Emma Gilbert was lost in concentration. It was the second day of work in a lengthy process to paint her dream mural in her hometown. As she was lost in her work, a man standing below pulls her attention away from the wall. The older gentleman explains that he is a police officer and is returning to the force after having been in a wheelchair for over a year. As Gilbert listened intently to the man’s story, he shared with her his appreciation for the mural—attempting to put into words how much it meant to him.
“We had a nine-minute conversation, and we were both fully in tears,” Gilbert said. “He described to me what the mural meant before it was installed and he gave a backstory of his life and said that not only does this art going up mean the world to him because it’s art in his hometown, but it’s also representative of something that’s going on in his life.”
After finishing their conversation, Gilbert carried on with her work on the mural—now knowing that the project not only meant the world to her but to others as well. She finished the piece 10 days later and could sit back knowing that her dream of painting a mural in her hometown was now fulfilled.
“I cried a little,” she said. “This is such a relief and a dream come true. I’ve painted murals all over the country and around the globe and those were phenomenal but this one meant something to me more than the other ones have.”
Gilbert’s mural now shines proudly in Alabaster’s Patriots Park after being completed on Saturday, May 31. Throughout the morning, visitors joined Gilbert at the park to commemorate the occasion with families and small children joining in and coloring in a canvas recreation of the large art piece.
The finished mural compliments Patriots Park by depicting Alabaster police officers and firefighters against a bright, flowery backdrop accompanied by several significant local landmarks such as the Municipal Complex and the Siluria water tower.
“Everyone loved it,” Gilbert said. “The city loved it. They sent me an email chain with all the City Council members saying that they loved working with me and that they loved the mural. That’s important, but the community’s feedback was most important. I think everybody that walked by the mural had great things to say.”
For Gilbert, the opportunity to paint a mural in her hometown was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream and a full-circle moment for her artistic career. Gilbert is an Alabaster native and a graduate of Thompson High School. After receiving her diploma, she spent two years traveling the country in an RV painting murals.
After returning back to Alabama, and founding her own global mural agency—EG Art Studios—she reached out to the Alabaster City Council with a proposal for a mural at Patriots Park. A plan was subsequently approved by the council on Feb. 24.
“Alabaster deserves more art,” Gilbert said. “We don’t have enough murals and we don’t have an art community at all out here, so to be able to actually have that come to fruition and then paint the mural and see the success of it is not only amazing, but it’s a childhood dream of mine.”
The process of painting the mural took 12 days to complete with Gilbert working at the park for approximately 12-13 hours a day. She began by priming the wall for the paint and then sketched out the artwork and prepped the space. Gilbert made use of Behr Exterior Paint for the project and utilized brush and spray application methods.
“I use a brush 80 percent of the time and then 20 percent is spray just to get the gradients and fill really big spaces,” Gilbert said. “All of the detail work is with brush and then once everything is filled in, I clear coat it and before that I do touch-ups.”
For Gilbert, completion of the project signified a change in her hometown and the start of new possibilities for up-and-coming artists in Alabaster.
“I didn’t think it was possible to be a successful artist in Alabaster until I got older and realized I can make this happen if I really wanted to,” she said. “For any kid who’s walking around going, ‘I want to be an artist one day, but I don’t know how to do it in Alabaster,’ I hope that mural is an inspiration for them, to tell them they can do that too.”
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