New ‘Looms and Legacy’ Mural on Market Street Depicts Lowell’s Mill Girls

Originally Published in the Lowell Sun on September 20th, 2025

By Peter Currier

LOWELL — Those traveling down Market Street may notice a prominent new feature along the route in the form of a mural celebrating Lowell’s history in the textile industry on the side of the Leo A. Roy Parking Facility.

The mural was painted by renowned street artist Allison Hueman, who brings with her a resume of many murals, public art pieces and collaborations she has done across the globe. This mural, titled “Looms and Legacy,” is a depiction of Lowell’s role in the American industrial revolution, namely through its famous textile industry. In particular, the piece showcases Lowell’s “mill girls,” the women who conducted much of the labor that powered the industry in the city in the 19th century.

Hueman, an Oakland, California-based artist, has been in Lowell painting the mural with spray paint from Sept. 14 to 19, and on the last day she applied a final layer to seal the image onto the side of the garage as a permanent public art piece.

“Whenever I get to do a mural in public I like to consider the city  it is going to be in, where it is placed,” said Hueman.

Hueman said she found the story of the mill girls to be interesting, and took note of the nearby “Homage to Women” statue close to the mural, which she said was a good juxtaposition as a three-dimensional art piece next to the two-dimensional mural.

“I thought it was interesting, the story about the Lowell mill girls, and how the [American] Industrial Revolution started here, and young women were such a big part of making that happen,” said Hueman. “As a woman and as a mother, I feel like there is a lot of labor that goes unnoticed. A lot of the work we put in as women tends to go unnoticed because we are just constantly carrying so many things at the same time. So this is just a tribute to the hard work they put in.”

Hueman has experience producing art based on fabrics, including, among others, a 2023 “City Edition” jersey for the Golden State Warriors. With the textile history at top of mind, Hueman evoked images of threads and fabric weaving through the mural.

The longest part of the process, Hueman said, is creating the actual design, which she said took weeks after she was tapped to be the artist for this project.

Lowell’s Director of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Peter Crewe said in a phone call Friday afternoon as he watched the sealing process begin at the mural that from the city’s side, this project has been in the works for about a year-and-a-half, and it has been an effort by Project Learn’s ArtUp Lowell.

“We’ve wanted to do a Market Street mural for a while, and we’ve wanted to do something on the garage for a while,” said Crewe. “We knew that the Homage to Women statue is right there, and we wanted to amplify and build on that theme, and how much the mill girls have significantly contributed to Lowell’s role in the American Industrial Revolution.”

With that theme in mind, Crewe said it was very important to them for the artist to be a woman, which led them to Hueman and her years of experience as an artist.

“We went through a really intensive and exhaustive search for the right artist for this location. We really wanted to take our time in making sure this was going to be a cornerstone piece for our public art,” said Crewe.

Ellen Casazza, who owns Lowell’s Curation 250 Art Gallery with her husband Frank Casazza, the artist also known as Eyeformation, said the spot on the parking facility was a perfect location for the mural.

“It is such a prime location, we wanted to make sure we got a premier muralist. If we want to keep having world-class art in Lowell we have to keep inviting world-class artists in,” said Casazza while standing in front of the mural Thursday. “It is such a special design that has just had an overwhelmingly positive response to folks in the neighborhood… Allison is really an expert in doing this colorful drapery fabric in spray paint, and that also speaks to the history of our textiles here in Lowell. We are just thrilled and honored to have her here.”