Araceli Ramirez for Borderless MagazineFounded by Albany Park artist Daniel Ponce, City Script is giving Chicagoans a chance to create murals alongside local artists.
Sivania Aluru stared at a section of blank canvas, pink marker in hand.
Around her, attendees colored in shapes and added their own designs.
But Aluru paused.
“I am very much a color-in-the-lines person, so when faced with an open canvas, it really confronts you,” said Aluru of suburban Aurora.
The moment marked Aluru’s first time at City Script, a street art workshop built around a two-sided mural: a color-by-number design on one side and a freestyle section on the other.
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City Script’s aim is to make public art less intimidating and to give Chicagoans a way to participate without worrying about getting it perfect, according to founder Daniel Ponce.
A self-taught artist from Albany Park, Ponce said the idea for the project grew from his own experience trying to find his place in Chicago’s art scene.
“I felt a lack of warmth [from the scene],” Ponce said.
He began exploring what it would look like to make art outside of galleries or traditional spaces, after being inspired at a backyard barbecue. He remembers watching his friend’s older brother spray-paint his graffiti tag on plastic wrap stretched between two poles.
Ponce began holding City Script street art events through his company Proof Studios in March 2025. Since then, the project has held pop-ups in Bronzeville, Pilsen, Hyde Park, Little Village, among other Chicago neighborhoods. For attendees like Alvina Chulanan, City Script helps young people see themselves as artists.
Chulan brought her family to a City Script event at a cafe in Little Village, where her nieces were able to help paint a color-by-number mural. While they hesitated at first, since the girls only recently learned their numbers, they soon became so enthusiastic about drawing that they did not want to put down their markers.
“It’s as easy as matching the color to the number. So if you can match those things, you’re good to go,” Chulanan said.
While cafe customers bought food and drinks, Chulan joined in on the painting on the freestyle side, making hearts and geometric shapes. She said she appreciated how the project made art interactive and gave residents a chance to encounter art-making where they already spend time.
At a Bronzeville event, artist Dante Lockett said City Script allowed him to create a larger piece while connecting with the people contributing to it.
“You’re able to communicate, talk to people around your piece, and they’re here, they’re helping you build this mural that you had in your mind,” Lockett said.
For artist Gabby Boseman, City Script offered a different opportunity.
During a City Script activation she helped create with eyewear brand Zenni held at the Blackhawks practice facilities, children and teenagers sketched across her colorful mural with markers. As the event neared its end, Boseman worried that the scribbles and white sections would make the mural look unfinished
But when she stepped back and saw the mural as a whole, she realized that the parts she had been trying to fix made the piece complete.
She said the experience taught her that, “you can let go, and nothing has to be to perfection. Things can be free and fun, and that’s what people love.”
Ponce is opening a pop-up Proof Studios space at 2826 W. Cermak Road in Little Village through the South Lawndale Small Business Storefront Activation Program.
The studio is set to host panels, live art critiques and City Script events through the end of the year. Ponce hopes programming allows people to “walk away feeling inspired, or like seen, or felt, or understood.”
The space is scheduled to open Oct. 10, 2026.
Araceli Ramirez is a bilingual multimedia reporter based in Chicago.
