Fellowship and Paintbrushes: How Midtown Atlanta Came Together to Ask 'What Gives You Hope?'
06/04/2026
BY BRIAN CARR
A vibrant new mural on the side of All Saints' Episcopal Church examines a simple question — and the answers are painted right there on the wall. We connected with the Rev. Simon Mainwaring and artist-in-residence Aysha Pennerman about the project, how it came together, and what they want you to take away from it. Read more.
Giving Voice to a Blank Wall
On a typical day, tens of thousands of people flow through Midtown Atlanta's dense grid of office towers, restaurants, galleries, and green spaces. Some commuters end their workday jockeying for space on Spring Street — inching past the Varsity, past a church parking deck, which features a long concrete wall that, until recently, said nothing at all.
That wall speaks now.
Stretching across the base of the Pritchard Center parking deck at All Saints' Episcopal Church, a sweeping new mural by artist Aysha Pennerman wraps the building in cascading color — a visual chorus of doves, figures, and handwritten words drawn from the voices of the community itself. The work was commissioned through the Midtown Alliance's Heart of the Arts studio residency program, and it poses a compelling question: What gives you hope?
For Aysha Pennerman, the Midtown Alliance artist-in-residence who designed the concept and led the community painting effort, the mural is a reminder that hope can be a source of healing, resilience, and connection.
“By inviting people to share what gives them hope, the project celebrates the many ways we care for one another and imagine a more just and compassionate future,” Pennerman said.
"I would love it to be an open question," says the Reverend Simon Mainwaring, rector of All Saints. "What gives me hope? And if you get closer to the mural, you can see different expressions of hope in words that were offered by members of the community."
Where Faith, Service and Art Merge Together
For All Saints, the mural is not an anomaly — it is an expression of something the congregation has practiced for more than a century. Founded in 1903, the church now occupies an entire city block on West Peachtree and counts roughly 2,700 members. Its ministries reach deep into the surrounding community: a 30-year-old refugee support program, a children's clothing ministry, partnerships in homelessness prevention, and a residential recovery program for men.
Inside the sanctuary, one of the largest collections of Tiffany stained glass windows in the country transforms natural light into color every Sunday morning. A nationally recognized music program fills the nave with everything from choral performances to a standing-room-only jazz concert series.
Moving the Effort Forward
When Midtown Alliance began looking for a host for its next artist residency cycle, Mainwaring — already a member of the organization's Public Life working group that was shaping strategies to foster human connection in the publicly accessible spaces between buildings — recognized the fit immediately.
"One thing leads to another," he recalls, "and eventually we had a conversation that had Aysha in the room."
Pennerman was awarded a grant from the Larch Creative Fund, which supported the addition of the metal doves and community workshops. The Larch Creative Fund, in conjunction with the Spruill Center for the Arts, seeks to fund innovative projects across Georgia that encourage creative and critical thinking through the arts, with a focus on having fun and encouraging community participation. The mural was also a great fit because getting involved was free and accessible to a diverse audience.
The wall they chose had its own logic. The lower section of the parking deck offered the right surface and scale. Thousands of drivers idling on Spring Street and people walking in the area would have a direct sightline. The location, as Mainwaring puts it, "almost presented itself."
Finding Serendipity at the Community Painting Day
The community painting day that followed drew volunteers of all ages from the congregation and its partner organizations.
As Pennerman described it, this was one of the more complex projects she has taken on. Between planning volunteer involvement, finding ways to incorporate community voices, brainstorming how the three-dimensional doves would be installed, and navigating the many perspectives involved, there were plenty of challenges to solve.
“In many ways, the process reflected the message of the mural itself,” Pennerman said. “Building something meaningful together despite the messiness and challenges that come with being in community.”
But the moment that lodged itself in Mainwaring's memory involved two strangers in a car.
"Two guys were driving past, saw it happening, and pulled over," he said. "They came over, asked if they could join in, picked up paintbrushes, and began working."
He paused, then laughed at his own instinct:
"They were literally passing by and hope stopped them in their tracks,” Mainwaring said. “I'm a preacher, so I know that's a sermon right there."
It is also, he suggested, exactly the point.
In a city where residents can customize their lives down to the gym, the grocery store, and the curated social feed, the spaces where strangers hold something in common are shrinking. Mural or no mural, that concerns him.
"The worst thing that could happen to Midtown is for all the faith communities to become insular and just turn inward," he said. "A city is like a body — you've got to have nutrients flowing around it for it to be healthy and living."
Asking the Big Questions
For now, the question hangs in the air above Spring Street, patient and unhurried, waiting for each passerby to answer it in their own way. Mainwaring is comfortable with that ambiguity. The church's job, as he sees it, is to keep asking.
"Midtown needs artists," he said. "Not just art — but artists. As much as it needs all the other elements of this community. My message to the Midtown community at large would be to keep on investing in artists and the arts."
See the Mural
"What Gives You Hope"
All Saints’ Episcopal Church
Corner of Spring Street and Ponce de Leon Avenue