---

Art Is Infrastructure: A Legacy Blog by Michelle Loughery

Why Copyright is the Cornerstone of Placemaking, Tourism, and the Skilled Future of Canada

By Michelle Loughery
Award-winning artist | Creator of the Wayfinder Mural Model | Founder of ART ROUTE BLUE

---

There’s a story I often tell—one of hands. My grandfather’s coal-blackened hands, my grandmother’s stitched fingers, my own paint-streaked palms. Hands that built, that fed, that told stories. In this country we call Canada, those hands were once called “blue collar.” But let me tell you the truth: those were the hands of master builders.

And they are still building—through brush strokes on concrete, through murals that rise on tired town walls, through stories that guide people back to place.

For over 30 years, I’ve walked the long road of art as infrastructure—from Sparwood to Vernon, Merritt to Missouri, from the Peace Arch to Route 66. My work wasn’t just paint—it was policy. It was economic strategy. It was healing. And it still is. Because the murals we create are not decorations. They are destination infrastructure, community equity, and cultural contracts with the people.

---

Copyright Is the Blueprint of Legacy

When a mural goes up, it transforms a wall into a monument. But that transformation holds value—and that value must be honoured. Copyright isn’t a legal technicality—it is the deed to the soul of a town.

To use a mural in tourism, branding, or planning is to profit from an artist’s intellectual and emotional investment. When cities fail to attribute, fail to preserve, or worse—remove or alter these works—they are not just disrespecting a person. They are dismantling infrastructure and stealing equity.

Would we take the blueprint of a bridge and not credit the engineer?
Would we market a cathedral and erase the architect?

Then why do we do it with murals?

---

 We Are All of the Earth—Indigenous Blue

ART ROUTE BLUE was born of this belief: that we are all Indigenous to this planet. My work, and the work of countless artists across these mural towns, carries that spirit forward. Indigenous people of Turtle Island, immigrants displaced and dreaming, grandmothers who embroidered place into memory—we are the storytellers of Earth.

To build a global mural trail, we must trade skills and stories, not just goods. And the currency of that trade is respect.
Respect for land.
Respect for labour.
Respect for the name on the wall.

This isn’t just about tourism. It’s about tribal trade through story. It’s about the shoemaker and the elf—the art left behind while towns sleep, that grows economies and raises pride.
But the elf is tired of being invisible.
The shoemaker wants a contract.

---

 Creative Labour Is Skilled Labour

Universities may train minds, but communities train hands. The murals I helped birth weren’t made in lecture halls—they were crafted with youth on ladders, immigrants painting their own heritage, seniors mentoring, mothers carving time to share knowledge. This is not soft work. It is hard infrastructure.

The murals on Canada’s walls have brought millions in economic return. They’ve anchored festivals, rerouted tourism, sparked investment. Yet many of those works are now neglected, erased, or co-opted by municipalities that refuse to protect them—or their creators.

That is not just immoral. It is economically reckless.

---

Art Is Not Free. It Is Freedom.

Public art is not charity. It is an equity share, a long-term investment, and a social contract. When we treat it as disposable, we lose more than beauty—we lose our way.

Every mural holds:

• The story of a community.
• The sweat of a builder.
• The vision of a nation.

And behind every mural is a name. Mine is Michelle Loughery. I built mural towns, not for ego, but for future. I stood on scaffolding before “creative economy” was a term. I trained hundreds. I brought millions to struggling towns. And I did it by believing in the skilled hand of the storyteller.

---

Wayfinder: From Coal Dust to Compass

My coal town was forced to relocate when I was a child. I remember the train tracks leaving Michel-Natal. That memory became a mural. That mural became a trail. That trail became ART ROUTE BLUE.

This is how we rebuild Canada:

• With art that holds place.
• With copyright that holds equity.
• With hands that still remember how to build.

Let us not forget: what we now call “infrastructure” began with people carving meaning into walls. We build bridges with numbers—but we build nations with names.

---

 Final Word

To every mayor, planner, and tourism director: if a mural is on your map, an artist is in your debt.
To every artist: your work is not a favour. It is a foundation.
To every youth or elder with paint on your fingers: you are part of the guild. You are the next generation of infrastructure creators.

Copyright is not protection. It is participation.
Public art is not optional. It is essential.
And legacy is not found in plaques—it’s found in justice.

We are all Indigenous to this Earth. We are all of the land of blue.
And the art we leave behind must never be taken without honour.

—

Michelle Loughery
www.ArtRouteBlue.org (placeholder website link)
Creator of the Wayfinder Mural Trail Model | Advocate for Creative Infrastructure | Builder of Mural Towns