POTTSTOWN PA – Clouds roamed across a gray sky as the Nov. 21 (2025) afternoon temperatures turned colder by the hour. Far more than just a sweater was needed to ward off the chill. No wonder, then, that mural artist and art teacher Amy Stephen was bundled up as she worked at the northeast corner of East High and Wilson streets.
Stephen wore a knitted hat, hooded shirt, paint-splattered fleece-lined jacket, and equally splattered workers’ coveralls. She lacked sufficient warmth for her hands, but they couldn’t be covered.
She needed them free to handle her paints and brushes.
The artist talked as she worked, and explained she hoped to complete her latest work before – and certainly by – a December deadline. She expected to finish, she added, with plenty of time to spare.
She did. Stephen’s artwork was the last signal box mural to be painted in the borough during 2025. It represents the latest such installation of the popular Pottstown public arts project.
The project is the result of what the Pottstown Area Regional Recreation Committee calls an “ongoing partnership.” It involves the committee, the borough Parks and Recreation Department, Pottstown-based gallery and art school ArtFusion 19464, and a private donor whose funding makes it all possible.
Top photo by Travels With The Post
Above photo provided by the Pottstown Area Regional Recreation Committee
Beautifying The Otherwise Ho-Hum
Stephen and her fellow artists are using their talents to beautify the ho-hum look of street corner signal boxes across the borough. Most are filled on the interior with wiring, switches, and gizmos. Their contents turn traffic lights red, or yellow, or green, depending on whether vehicles need to be stopped, slowed, or moved.
Their exteriors, however, are being transformed into color-drenched displays of whimsy, seasonal scenes, flowers, birds and insects, and a child’s fantasy or two. The murals perform as intended, the committee notes: They add “another touch of color and creativity to town.”
Amy Stephen’s creation is her first mural in Pottstown. It features “a playful carousel theme with rich curtains, teal backdrops, and carousel-style animals wrapping around the box, according to the committee’s description, the committee reports. Her design also brings a “delightful,” “unexpected,” and decidedly “fun burst of color to the intersection,” it adds.
It’s true that, during early November, the committee announced that a mural completed in front of the McDonald’s Restaurant at 1428 E. High St. was to have been the last of last year.
Then Stephen got started, and excitement quickly grew over the “bonus” art. The committee had one more work to display.
Getting Plenty of Looks
The intersection at East High and Wilson is one of the busiest on the borough’s east end. The traffic lights there control vehicles moving north and south along Armand Hammer Boulevard and Wilson Street, and east and west on High.
The Stephen piece is highly visible, sitting a short distance south of the Santander Bank branch office there. It gets plenty of looks. Passers-by say it regularly reminds them of another borough landmark, The Carousel at Pottstown, located across from Memorial Park at 30 W. King St.
The committee’s current newsletter, distributed Monday (Feb. 2) by e-mail, assures that more murals are planned for 2026. “Keep an eye out as you travel through town,” it warns. “You never know where the next mural may appear!”
Additional and Related Reading
- Last 2025 Signal Box Mural in Pottstown Now On Display; Nov. 5, 2025
- Love Murals on Pottstown Traffic Boxes? More are Planned; Jan 9, 2024
Our entertainment reporting covers the arts and culture, shows, exhibits, performances, festivals, and community-related activities within, or that affect residents of, Montgomery, Berks, and Chester PA counties. Find more entertainment articles here. Also, see and join the Pottstown Arts and Cultural Alliance group on Facebook.
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