BURLINGTON, Vermont — If you passed through Burlington's Central Transit Hub on your morning commute Tuesday, you may have noticed something new on the north exterior wall: a sweep of slate-grey pigment, deliberate and calm, the first colour laid down in what will eventually become Les Marées.

Montréal-based artist Daphné Côté-Ouellet was on site from early morning, working quietly through the rush-hour foot traffic. A handful of commuters slowed to watch; at least one stopped long enough to take a photograph, which circulated through a local community channel before the morning was out. Côté-Ouellet did not speak to passersby, but later posted a single image to her studio channel with the words: it starts today.

The tidal base layer — the slate-grey underpinning she described in her earlier colour studies — is the foundation from which the rest of the mural will build. It does not announce itself. But for anyone who has watched that wall sit primed and waiting through the cold weeks, it marks a beginning.