We Are the light mural (2024)
This project was created as part of my collaborative work with teens at The Community Art Center. It began with teens hosting a series of meetings with neighbors to discuss ideas for the mural. Teens also devised a survey that they distributed at CAC’s annual block party. In small groups, the teens then drafted proposals based on the data they’d collected through the survey and meetings. They presented their proposals to me as well as the larger group and after much exchange, a design was finalized and presented to the neighborhood group. The teens and neighbors wanted the mural to look like it belonged in the neighborhood while also standing out as unique. They decided to use text as the main subject, choosing the phrase “We are the light,” which honors the memory of a late teen who had attended CAC.
While the background for this mural was painted directly on the wall, the foreground imagery was painted in CAC’s teen studio on a material called polytab, which was then glued to the wall and sealed.
This project was supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts' Public Art for Spatial Justice program, with funding from the Barr Foundation and the Fund for the Arts at NEFA.
