Regarding the Nov. 25 Maine Voices column, (“Portland is at risk of becoming a charmless, cookie-cutter city”), Peter Wiles rightly mourns the sheer ugliness of the box buildings going up all around the city. I can’t drive by them myself without booing every single one.

But there is a remedy, already changing drabness into beauty: murals! We have an abundance of local artists, amateur and professional both, who have worked their magic, rendering what was nondescript into something you want to stop and admire.

No artist worth their salt sees a problem; they see a canvas, they see an answer. I wouldn’t be even a little surprised if many of them are already eyeing these buildings, envisioning a thing of beauty to behold.

Zoe Gaston
South Portland