wall street steps
A new mural is being created for the Wall Street Steps by Asheville-based artist Dayna Walton, commissioned by the Asheville Downtown Association Foundation, the Asheville Downtown Improvement District, Duke Energy, and Arts AVL.
Join us for the Mural Celebration on June 27th, 2026 from 10am - 3pm on Wall Street.
The Wall Street Steps connect Wall Street to Battery Park Lane and have been home to public art since 2019, when Ian Wilkinson (Ian the Painter) adorned these steps with his much loved mural, Catawba Falls, which uses the steps to evoke the nearby outdoor attraction, while bringing an unexpected and calming moment to passersby Downtown.
MEANDER
Meander is the next chapter in the staircase’s story. Through a competitive community panel process, Asheville Downtown selected Dayna Walton to create a new mural rooted in the ecology and biodiversity of the Southern Appalachian region. Inspired by Ian the Painter’s mural and its relationship to the natural world in an unexpected, urban setting, the forthcoming mural design utilizes the vertical form of the staircase in a similarly playful way. The mural will be completed by June 21st, and a celebration will take place on Wall Street on June 27th, 2026 from 10am - 3pm.
For questions, comments, and concerns, please reach out to erica@ashevilledowntown.org
meet the artist
Dayna Walton came to love Western North Carolina through the Artist-in-Residence program of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2019. Since then she has been hiking, sketching, and learning about ecology wherever she can. Her illustrations are her way of studying the creepy, crawly, tiny, and often overlooked parts of nature. From slime molds and stoneflies to lichens and liverworts, you are sure to recognize species from the Blue Ridge Mountains in her work. Dayna studied Printmaking at Kendall College of Art and Design in Michigan, where she learned screen printing. She now works from a home studio where she and her partner use silkscreens to turn her ink drawings into prints. She often collaborates with other craftspeople including sewers, dyers, and leatherworkers to create unique functional goods from printed textiles and paper. Creating wearable pieces holds a special place in her practice for their potential to bring together people who share a love for nature, bonding over stories of bats and bugs.
the process
In early 2026, the Asheville Downtown launched a competitive Request for Qualifications process, receiving applications from seventeen incredibly talented artists from across the region. An eleven-person community panel of artists, including Ian Wilkinson, who painted the original Catawba Falls, business owners, Wall Street stakeholders, and arts advocates reviewed the applications, scored each artist across different criteria, and convened for a multi-staged selection process that included a shared values exercise, portfolio review, and group deliberation.
Dayna Walton was selected unanimously as the artist for the project. Following her selection, she led a community engagement process in partnership with botanists, ecologists, and Wall Street stakeholders to gather input on which native species and Appalachian ecosystems resonate most personally with the people who live, work, and gather here. That input directly informed her design.
