The quilts Olivia Trimble creates aren’t crafted with fabric and thread—but with paint, transforming walls into vibrant tapestries of home and comfort.
As a sign painter and muralist, Olivia’s use of big, bold colors and letters aligns with messages of love, gratitude, and hope, urging viewers in and around her native Fayetteville to embrace notions to “Love Your Neighbor” with messages like “Love Wins.”
Spreading warmth and comfort is Olivia’s mission through her art, and she wants it to be accessible to everyone. More than a decade ago, she began painting quilt squares—first as small art pieces and later transforming walls and buildings into her canvas for the community to experience. Her goal has remained the same—to weave art into everyday spaces, bringing people together through color and design. Olivia was inspired by the feelings of warmth and comfort she felt as a child, wrapped in wedding ring quilts passed down by her great-grandmother. “They always sat in a special basket in our living room, kind of on display and out in the house,” Olivia said.
A sixth generation Ozarker, Olivia began her painting career in 2011 after being inspired by a documentary called Sign Painters. Though her stepfather is a sign painter and has offered his advice along the way, she is self-taught and the founder of Sleet City Creative, the brand under which she paints. And it didn’t take long for her work to catch on. At an independent craft show, where she had a booth, she connected with Onyx Coffee Lab, a well-known coffee roaster with locations in Northwest Arkansas. Onyx asked her to paint a sign, which led to commissions from other indie businesses.
While Olivia is not a quilter herself, she follows quilters like Houston’s Sarah Morris of Ruthlessly Handmade (who is her favorite) and has several books and magazines on the craft. “I have a crush on the fiber arts,” she said. “As a painter, I feel like the way that I can pay respect to that medium is to paint it.”
Olivia’s first quilt square, which she painted in 2012, was a birthday present for her mom. She painted a star block on the back porch of her mother’s home. ”She loved it, and other people thought it was really sweet,” Olivia said.
She continued painting small blocks after that, favoring the Ohio Star, which she finds meditative to draw. In 2014, the Quilt Star Project was born, and Olivia painted an 8-by-8-foot block on the side of a warehouse in Springdale, about nine miles from Fayetteville, along a bike trail. At the time, Olivia said, there was little public art in the city, and the idea was to help revitalize it by adding a splash of color.
“I got really sweet feedback about it, that it was just a bright spot in just kind of a nondescript area,” Olivia said.
The experience also led her to her best friend, Sarah King, who snapped a selfie in front of Olivia’s mural and tagged her in it.
Other quilt murals followed, including a block on a sign outside the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History, also in Springdale, and whose annual quilt festival Olivia calls a highlight of her year. In 2016, Sarah’s former employer, a real estate developer, was building a new, upscale apartment community featuring a contemporary design. An empty wall in the community provided a perfect canvas for Olivia, who was contracted to create a 400-square-foot mural to blanket the space. Named Uptown Quilt, it was warmly embraced, Sarah said.
“What’s beautiful about Olivia’s work is that it can be read in a really modern lens, and it fits so well in the space,” Sarah said.
In 2023, Olivia brought a taste of the Ozarks to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where she worked as a production designer for the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which highlighted the region that year. Among the several works she painted was a 700-foot monochromatic quilt mural on the side of a semi-trailer, welcoming visitors to the festival.
Olivia’s latest quilt murals include a tiki-inspired piece designed for the outdoor lounge at a new Motto by Hilton hotel in Bentonville. Her work can also be spotted in Fayetteville’s iconic Wilson Park, where she added two 224-foot pieces to cover backboards for tennis players to practice their aim. The flying geese she painted around the border give the mural a dynamic sense of movement.
Olivia photographed with her Wilson Park Mural (2025), located at Wilson Park in Fayetteville.
Joanna Sheehan Bell, arts and culture director for the City of Fayetteville, worked with Olivia to bring the murals to the park—which she referred to as the “living room” of the city—as part of a refurbishment project.
“What would I want in my living room?” Joanna asked. “Obviously, a quilt would make it more cozy, right?”
While quilting can be a physically taxing endeavor, painting a quilt mural is also no easy task. Olivia often relies on heavy equipment, including scissor and boom lifts, to complete her work. Add in some unexpected elements, like a disintegrating wall, deep mortar crevices, or even wasp nests, and the challenge looms larger. The reward comes in learning about different communities and growing new bonds with them.
“It’s a big deal when someone who lives there says, ‘Thank you for putting this up. This improves where I live.’ That’s the best feeling in the whole world,” she said.
Olivia, who has gained national attention for her Repaint Hate campaign—an effort to cover hateful graffiti with meaningful messages of love—wants to wrap an entire building, including the trim and doors, with a quilt mural. She already has a few buildings in Northwest Arkansas in mind to use as her canvas.
Olivia also dreams of working with the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she hopes to paint a quilt background overlaid with the phrase “Don’t Get Lonesome.” A longtime fan of the folk singer, Olivia was inspired by his 1943 New Year’s resolution, when he wrote those words—a sentiment she resonates with. “I think it’s the best phrase, ‘Don’t Get Lonesome.’ That’s a great reminder, and something that people need,” she said.
Courtney Mabeus-Brown has been a journalist for more than two decades and a quilter for about two years. She bought her first sewing machine during the COVID-19 pandemic, making bags and small home accessories before a friend got her hooked on quilting; she’s now made three quilts, and there is no end in sight. Courtney lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and cat in an old 1880s home. Her award-winning journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Virginian-Pilot, and many others, and her sewing work can be found on Instagram at @SundrySouthKing.
