Arts

‘Never Too Much, Always Enough’: Mayor’s Mural Crew Art Installation Celebrates Olmsted Bicentennial

By |

Boston's Mayor’s Mural Crew and the National Park Service created a series of temporary chairs across the Emerald Necklace to commemorate the bicentennial celebration of Frederick Law Olmsted. The park furnishings, named “never too much, always enough,” features 24 chairs in six sites across the Emerald Necklace, which was designed by Olmsted. The chairs were built by repurposing the distinctive white spruce-pole fence that was designed by Olmsted, to surround the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline (Fairsted). Jamaica Plain resident Heidi Schork, who founded The Mayor’s Mural Crew, designed the chair with an inspiration to use the same curves found in Fairsted’s beautiful fence, according to a press release. The chair are at the following locations:

Jamaica Pond, in the southwest corner overlooking the pond and in the northwest corner amongst the trees

Franklin Park, to the left of Franklin Park Golf Course Clubhouse and at the top of Scarborough Hill (by Hole 12 of the golf course)

Allerton Overlook, off of Pond Avenue by Olmsted Park’s Leverett Pond

Back Bay Fens, off of Park Drive behind the James P. Kelleher Rose Garden

 

View this post on Instagram

 
A post shared by @mayorsmuralcrew

This project was conceptualized and brought to life by a group of youth artists employed through Boston’s Department of Youth Employment, together with adult artists employed for the Boston Parks Department, including: Aiyanna Canty, Aminah Yahya, Bobby Zabin, Camila Aguilera-Steinert, Eli Swanson, Emmett Hughes, Heidi Schork (Program Director, The Mayor’s Mural Crew), Inez Bendavid-Val, Jamar Joseph, Jerome Jones (Lead Artist, The Mayor’s Mural Crew), Kayla Depina, Laniya Harding, Liz O’Brien (Program Manager, The Mayor’s Mural Crew), Lucy Edelstein-Rosenberg, Maia Poremba, Madalen Bigsby-Licht, Nalani Reid, Niamh Mulligan, Tony Depina, Xavier James, Xzavier Santiago, and Zariyah Wilkerson.

1,534 Views
Arts

ICYMI: Moss Installation Made By Mayor’s Mural Crew Celebrated Olmsted’s 200th Birthday

By |

Frederick Law Olmsted's 200th birthday was April 26 and the Mayor's Mural Crew celebrated it in a very unique way -- with a moss graffiti installation on the Jamaica Pond Boathouse. The installation was part of the celebration of his birthday on April 26. The moss graffiti installation is an Olmsted quote: "Gradually and silently the charm comes over us; we know not exactly where or how." https://twitter.com/mayorsmuralcrew/status/1519329220392071170

1,937 Views
Arts

City’s Mural Crew Creates Art Around Boston with Focus on Franklin Park

By |

This summer's Mural Crew employed triple the amount of youth for the program's 29th year, with 27 youth participating in this year's program. The city decided to increase the amount of Boston high school students for the program to provide more teenagers with a safe, in-person experience to create large-scale public art projects throughout the city, according to a press release. This year's crew included teenagers representing 12 different local high schools from 10 neighborhoods. "This summer we got to make new forms of art in the woods that pushed our thoughts and conceptions of art, and allowed us to experience something new," said Jamaica Plain's Jon Lopez-Wilen, a junior studying illustration at Lesley University, who has worked with the Mural Crew since 2015. Earlier in the spring, there was a tremendous surge in the use of Franklin Park, and with the Mural Crew being based out of the city's Parks Department farm in Franklin Park, they took inspiration from the amount of socially-distanced space within Franklin Park.

3,110 Views
Arts

Mayor’s Mural Crew Restores Taino Mural in Hyde Square, Creates New Mural

By |

A mural originally made in 1984 has been restored by the Mayor's Mural Crew throughout August. The Taino Mural was created by Rafael Rivera Garcia, a Puerto Rican university professor and artist, outside of what is now the Whole Foods Market. “In addition to creating new pieces of art, the Mayor’s Mural Crew plays an important role in maintaining and preserving art that already exists in Boston’s neighborhoods,” said Mayor Martin Walsh via a press release. “This work is invaluable to helping us ensure that art is present in every neighborhood, contributing to the overall vitality of the city.”

The mural features mythic figures and tribal practices of the Taino, who are people indigenous to the Caribbean. This mural features the Huraca’n, translated as “center of the storm”—a word later adopted by the Spaniards to describe tropical cyclones.

4,211 Views