Downtown State College has a new splash of color, and a new chapter in its artistic story, thanks to local artist and business owner Emily Cooper. Her latest mural, titled “Remember When,” stretches across the historic Dale Building on the corner of South Fraser Street and West Calder Way, transforming a brick wall into a vivid reflection of the town’s past.
For Cooper, who has lived in State College for 13 years, the mural represents more than just paint on a wall. It’s a tribute to a community that embraced her when she first picked up her brushes and began experimenting with public art.
“I feel super proud of myself, because it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Cooper said of the project. “But it was also really joyful, and I just feel grateful that [property owners] the Friedman family wanted to connect with me and trusted me to accomplish something like this.”
The mural, commissioned by Comet Properties, recalls the 111-year-old Dale Building’s history as the former site of a Clover Farm Store, a grocery business with a downtown State College location from the 1930s to 1960s. The design features retro storefront imagery alongside whimsical details like a mother cat and kittens, a nod to the strays that once roamed downtown shopfronts. Prices painted on the mural reflect the reality of the 1940s: just cents for produce and dry goods.
“I wanted to add little bits of life to it,” Cooper explained. “It’s not just painting a storefront—it’s about creating a snapshot of what downtown felt like decades ago, while also giving people today something to smile at.”
However, Cooper didn’t begin her career with walls in mind. Her path into window art and murals started with face painting at community events and birthday parties. From there, she started her own business, Faces and Spaces Artistry.
During the winter lull in bookings a few winters ago, she turned to a Facebook community of international face painters for inspiration and discovered the tradition of window painting.
“I realized that didn’t really exist here in State College,” she said. “So I went downtown that winter and started painting holiday windows for a few businesses. Then people wanted it again for spring, and it just kind of exploded from there.”
Her first local supporters included local businesses Reini Jewelers and The Squirrel and Acorn Bookshop, who embraced her cheerful seasonal designs. Students walking by often paused to admire the colorful scenes.
“The college students would say things like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s so cute,’ and I thought if they’re saying it out loud, they must really like it,” Cooper said.
Word spread quickly, and Cooper was soon fielding calls from other business owners who wanted their windows painted. The visibility of her work caught the attention of Comet Properties, who then invited her to take on her first mural: a sprawling octopus at the corner of McAllister Alley and East Calder Way, whose tentacles intertwined symbols of Penn State State College culture, from a Creamery ice cream cone to a football to the Tavern sign.
“I call myself a connector,” she said. “The octopus felt perfect because I love meeting people and connecting one person to another. That’s really how all of this started, through conversations and relationships.”
While her Calder Way mural was more large-scale then she was used to, the Dale Building project was still the largest project Cooper has taken on. She painted the design off-site on polytab material, which was later applied to the wall like wallpaper with help from fellow veteran muralist Will Snyder.
“It was overwhelming at first,” Cooper shared. “I would walk into the empty space downtown where I was sketching it out, look at this massive blank rectangle, and think, ‘I have no idea how to even start this.’ But I kept telling myself, ‘do it for future Emily; she’ll thank you.’”
The process took about three months, with delays caused by weather and translating research into art. Cooper immersed herself in 1940s grocery history, recreating iconic imagery in ways that were recognizable but not exact replicas.
“It was important to me that people could look at it and think, ‘Oh, that feels familiar,’” Cooper said. “It’s meant to bring out that nostalgia without being copy-and-paste.”
As someone who has painted children’s faces, decorated shop windows and now completed one of the largest outdoor artworks downtown, Cooper sees her role as giving different generations a shared point of connection.
“I think about the kids whose faces I’ve painted, who then saw my windows downtown, and now see my murals,” she reflected. “Thirty years from now, some of those kids might still live here. They’ll walk past this mural and remember that I once painted their face like a tiger. That’s so special to me.
“I don’t want my work to look machine-made,” she continued. “I want people to see that a person did this. I’m not the best artist and I don’t want to be. I want to keep learning, keep connecting and keep making things that matter to this town.”
Her mural “Remember When” now stands as both a tribute to downtown’s past and a reflection of its community-oriented present and everchanging future.
“I’ve lived here through so many phases of my life,” Cooper said. “Downtown keeps changing, but it’s still downtown State College. It still has so many great things to offer, and now I get to leave something behind that’s part of that story.”
