Enriching Grove Hall’s legacy

Mentoring Murals at 345 Blue Hill Ave in the heart of Grove Hall seeks to showcase the work of local artists, amplify the importance of maintaining a vibrant Black arts community, and celebrate the Black mural movement’s past and present in Roxbury and Dorchester. The program invited established Black Roxbury and Dorchester artists to co-create a temporary, printed mural to be mounted on a visible wall in the Grove Hall, Dorchester neighborhood. In partnership with Greater Grove Hall Main Streets, we extended the opportunity to create large-format work to non-muralists, encouraged exploration of Grove Hall with a mobile tour, and developed a pilot program for other Boston neighborhoods to independently create place-based murals.

Deeply Rooted in the NeighborHOOD, homage to Allan Rohan Crite, 2021

The third and final installation of Mentoring Murals from longtime friends and first-time collaborators Johnetta Tinker and Susan Thompson opened on Saturday, Dec 11, 12-2 pm at Breezes in Grove Hall. The imagery blends collage, quilting, and painting techniques to create a bright tribute to daily life in Roxbury, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, and Mattapan. It also pays respect and homage to their mentor, Boston-based artist Allan Rohan Crite (1910-2007).

Video by White Birch Media.

follow along on social #MentoringMuralsBOS

Banner image: Faith Ninivaggi (c)

Get there and explore

Mentoring Murals is designed for the side of Breezes Laundromat, a community anchor, at 345 Blue Hill Ave developed and operated by Dorchester native and community advocate Frank Thomas. This 13 x 60’ wall faces empty lots and is highly visible to anyone traveling south on Blue Hill.

Directions

Grove Hall is the geographic heart of Boston with MBTA bus access running north-south along Blue Hill Ave from Dudley to Mattapan including bus 28. 345 Blue Hill Ave is a 15 min walk from the Four Corners/Geneva stop on the MBTA Fairmount Line. Parking along Blue Hill Ave is free. Click here for Google Map directions.

Download a map in English.

Download a map in Spanish.

Explore Other CREATIVE Expressions

Did you know there are at least five other murals by Black artists in the Grove Hall area? We’ve created a special “Grove Hall Murals” tour on our mobile public art project site. If you have a project to feature, drop us a note.

An artwork 40 years in the making

johnetta tinker

Johnetta is a long-time Boston resident who graduated from Texas Southern University, Houston TX, with a Bachelor of Education degree and from Boston University with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Art Education. Tinker’s work has been shown in numerous art exhibits and traveling exhibitions throughout the U.S. and abroad. Tinker has painted murals in Houston and Boston and designed interactive exhibits with the Boston Children’s Museum, Boston Black Exhibition, and coordinated several mural art projects with neighborhood community centers in the Boston area. She illustrated brochures and books. She has participated in several artist-in-residency and art exchange programs including the Indian Arts Institute Museum, Santa Fe, NM, the Massachusetts Guangdong China Art Exchange, and Artpark, Lewiston, NY. 

Johnetta was awarded the Creative Entrepreneur Fellowship award in 2017 from the Arts & Business Council, and received an Artist Fellowship (Drawing and Printmaking) from the Mass Cultural Council in 2020.

(source: https://artsandbusinesscouncil.org/staff-member/johnetta-tinker/)

susan thompson

Susan is a textile, fiber and mixed media artist who lives and works primarily in the Greater Boston area.  At Hunter College of the City of New York, she became interested in African American History and the visual arts.  Her concern for the development of mutually supportive relationships between African American artists and their communities led her to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she was a Research Associate in the Community Fellows Program.  Ms. Thompson has exhibited widely in Massachusetts and other parts of the United States.  She has participated in cultural exchanges in Haiti, Cuba, People’s Republic of China, Japan and with Native American artists in Sante Fe, New Mexico.  Her work reflects the diverse cultural influences that she has encountered in her travels abroad and in her own cultural heritage.  Through fabric, she creates unique designs, which sometimes tell stories that communicate the struggle and soul of her people.  

Susan has created public art for the MBTA Orange Line, the Parks Department, the Harriet Tubman House, the Afro-American Museum, schools and other organizations.  She is currently an artist-in-residence in the African American Master Artist in Residence Program at Northeastern University.  She retired from the Artful Adventures Program at the Museum of Fine Arts in 2016 and the same year was awarded a Creative Entrepreneur Fellowship.  She has been a consultant for the Gardner Museum, the Children’s Museum and the Boston Aquarium.  She currently teaches at Paige Academy. Susan Thompson feels passionately that her own craft as well as those of others should be celebrated and passed down to future generations.

Mentored and Inspired by Allan Rohan Crite

Johnetta and Susan were mentored by Allan Rohan Crite (1910-2007), a Boston-based African-American artist committed to creating images of African-American life based on his lived experiences instead of stereotypes. With this suite of murals, Tinker and Thompson pay homage to Crite's dedication to uplifting everyday life in Black Boston and bring to life a collaboration that has been 40 years in the making.

Photos by Faith Ninivaggi (c)

Continuing to collaborate in new ways

EKUA HOLMES

Life-long Roxbury resident Ekua Holmes distinguishes herself as an artist by creating elaborately layered collage pieces made from cut and torn papers that investigate family histories, relationship dynamics, childhood impressions and the power of hope, faith, and self-determination. Remembering her childhood in Roxbury with wonder and delight, she considers herself part of a long line of Roxbury image makers. She is the recipient of several awards for illustrating children’s literature including the Caldecott Honor and has been a two-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration.

In 2018, she was a Now + There Public Art Accelerator and launched her first public art initiative, the Roxbury Sunflower Project. She currently serves as Commissioner and Vice-Chair of the Boston Art Commission where she oversees the placement and maintenance of public works of art in the city. As Associate Director at the Center for Art and Community Partnerships at MassArt, Holmes manages and coordinates sparc! The ArtMobile, an art-inspiring, art-transforming vehicle retrofitted to contribute to community-based, multi-disciplinary arts programming in Mission Hill, Roxbury, and Dorchester. She earned her BFA in photography from MassArt in 1977.

(source: https://www.ekuaholmes.com/about)

LONDON PARKER-MCWHORTER

London Parker-McWhorter, born in Pasadena, CA, is a photographer, artist and researcher. He is also co-caretaker of United Neighbors of Lower Roxbury Garden.

Joined by sunflowers

Ekua Holmes first tapped London Parker-McWhorter to help with the Roxbury Sunflower Project nearly four years ago. Most recently, he assisted Holmes when she brought that project to the Museum of Fine Arts, planting sunflowers on its lawn as part of Garden for Boston. Parker-McWhorter served as project manager and liaison to the Museum’ contractors. Holmes was inspired by Parker-McWhorter’s photography, particularly his ability to capture tiny details of the natural world and chose him as mentee for this project. Honoring the past, seeding the future merges Holmes’ colorful illustrations with Parker-McWhorter’s poignant photography with the sunflower theme tying both together.

Growing community 

Believing that planting a seed is nurturing our future, Holmes and Parker-McWhorter see gardening as a way of creating and celebrating community. New this rotation is a pair of murals installed next to Breeze's at 343 Blue Hill Ave. Part of "Honoring the past, seeding the future," these murals magnify the importance of today's youth for tomorrow's future and feature members of the community. All three murals are offset by sunflowers, planted this spring in time to blossom in the fall. Part of the Roxbury Sunflower Project, these blooms represent the initiatives' six themes: radiance, resilience, beauty, deeply rooted, seeds of love, and follow the sun. While you’re visiting the “Honoring the past, seeding the future” mural, be sure to check out Holmes’s installation illustrating these themes at the nearby Freedom House (5 Crawford Street, Dorchester). 

Collaborating for the first time

Though they’ve been working in Boston together for at least two decades and exhibited in group shows together, this is Goodnight and Pierces’s first time collaborating on a mural. The two met first when Goodnight visited an exhibition Piece held in the Piano Craft Gallery, the gallery associated with the Piano Craft Building, a converted piano factory once home to many artists where Goodnight still keeps a studio. The two struck up a friendship with Goodnight sharing painting techniques and Piece providing “out-of-the-box” ideas. The two continue to share influences and inspiration — from music videos to painting DVDs — and are concurrently planning a collaborative project with other Boston artists that supports Black youth.

Paul Goodnight

Artist Paul Goodnight was born in Chicago on December 31, 1946. At a young age, his mother took him to New London, Connecticut, and later to Boston, where a foster family raised him. After finishing high school, Goodnight was drafted into the Army, and served two years in Vietnam. The experience changed him and upon his return, he was unable to speak because of the horrors he witnessed there. Soon after, Goodnight began to paint, reverting to the means of expression he had employed as a child.

Finding release in his art, Goodnight regained his voice and enrolled in the Vesper George School of Art, taking English classes at a nearby community college to help him along the way. In 1976, he earned his B.A. from the Massachusetts College of Art. Goodnight continued to create, and in 1984 one of his works was displayed on an episode of “The Cosby Show.” Since then, his works have been featured in such programs as “Seinfeld,” “ER,” and “Living Single.” Goodnight then began traveling the world, studying the art of the Caribbean, Africa, Russia, and Asia, as well as working under contemporary masters such as Alan Crite and John Biggers.

(source: https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/paul-d-goodnight-39)

Larry Pierce

Larry Pierce was born in the Bronx, New York on February 9, 1949. After graduating from the High School of Art and Design, he did a brief stint in the Navy and was honorably discharged in 1969 as a Photographer’s Mate. He began formal studies at the School of Visual Arts in NY and was graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree (BFA). He taught Head Start and EHS preschool children at the Dimock Center (Roxbury, MA), for eight years, taught art at the Smart Kids after-school program, and wrote the curriculum for the children’s arts program, “Art for Life”.

(source: https://cacpartmobile.tumblr.com/post/150129201761/paintbox-artist-larry-pierce)

PURCHASE THE PRINT

You can purchase a limited edition print (200 pcs) of Paul Goodnight and Larry Pierce’s mural, “No Strings Detached” directly through Color Circle Art. The artists receive 100% of the proceeds.

For information on purchasing, call 617-437-1260 and leave a message. The office is open Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

• Wonderland, “‘Seeding The Future’ With Ekua Holmes And London Parker-McWhorter’s New Grove Hall Mural,” September 9, 2021

• BNN, "Mural and Sunflowers to Transform Grove Hall Lot,” September 3, 2021

• Boston.com "Mural project pairs artists for rotating installations in Grove Hall,” July 28, 2021

• WCVB 5 CityLine “Now and There Murals,” July 11, 2021.

• GBH: Boston Public Radio Paul Goodnight and Larry Pierce July 8, 2021.

• GBH News: Arts This Week "Mural Makers Team Up to Create Large Scale Public Art in Boston.” July 8, 2021.

• Bay State Banner "Muralists kick off public art series in Grove Hall,” June 30, 2021.

• Boston Globe "Mentoring Murals shows off generations of Black artistic talent,” June 22, 2021.

• BNN “Mural Artists Create Focal Points for Grove Hall,” June 17, 2021

• BNN “Making Grove Hall a Mecca for Murals,” June 11, 2021

• Spark FM Online “Wake Up with Tayla Andre featuring Mentoring Murals,” June 9, 2021.

Banner image: (c) Dominic Chavez.

Creating more transparency and access

Mentoring Murals celebrates the inter-connectedness we need to create, produce, and showcase public art in neighborhoods. It acknowledges the many hands and different viewpoints it takes to create public art while making the process more transparent. Ultimately, it creates a higher awareness about one another and the places we call home across Boston.

Mentoring Murals began with an inquiry from Greater Grove Hall Main Streets Executive Director, Ed Gaskin. After participating in N+T’s live Zoom conversation “N+T Asks: Grove Hall” with Johnetta Tinker and Larry Pierce in the summer of 2020, Ed reached out with a challenge: how to create innovative murals that, like billboards could be printed and rotated out frequently at a lower cost than painted murals and ultimately create equitable access to contemporary art, especially for artists of color and those who cannot physically create large-scale murals. He saw our “deep expertise in large-scale installations” and asked if we could lead the engineering effort to make the project possible.

We thought Gaskin was on to something — and we had some recommendations for how to make the selection of artists more equitable too — and a relationship of co-learning, trust, and reciprocity began.

According to Gaskin, there was only one work of public art listed by the Boston Arts Commission when he took the helm of GGHMS in 2013. “Learning of the relationship between public art and economic development, and the challenges artists of color have in getting the opportunity to display their work, we set out to change that,” said Gaskin, GGHMS’s Executive Director. “Murals were one way to bring more public art to the community, but they are expensive, permanent, and limited to muralists.”

ABOUT GREATER GROVE HALL MAIN STREETS

Greater Grove Hall Main Streets is a non-profit focused on the economic and community development and urban planning for the Grove Hall area. As part of its community development, it has brought murals, painted utility boxes, a summer concert series, and is in the process of restoring the iconic clock tower in the heart of Grove Hall. Visit their site for more information on Grove Hall past, present, and future including its history as a center of Jewish Culture, Prince Hall Grand Lodge (the oldest black fraternal organization in North America), and the many attractions that make Grove Hall a vibrant neighborhood.

With special thanks to:

Major funding for Mentoring Murals was provided by the 2020 N+T Accelerator program. Additionally, Boston Main Streets Foundation supported GGHMS’s initial idea to create printed murals.

Further funding for the second and third iterations of Mentoring Murals was provided by Kensington Investment Company amd NEFA’s Public Art for Spatial Justice grant.

Standing on broad shoulders

Mentoring Murals and the artists selected to participate in it by GGHMS, N+T, and a committee of local Black artists all come from a long line of Black artists who have shaped the Boston art scene, in particular Roxbury and Dorchester, for over a century.

From the 1960s to today, local artists such as Dana Chandler, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Sharon Dunn, and others have registered the neighborhood’s significance as a center of Black culture. During the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 70s, the neighborhood’s walls became the fulcrum of powerful murals, starting a tradition that continues to this day. Notable examples include “Africa is the Beginning,” by Gary Rickson (1969), Dana Chandler’s “Knowledge is Power” (c. 1973), “Faces of Dudley” by Mike Womble (1995, reprised 2015), “Roxbury Love,” by Ricardo “Deme5” Gomez and Thomas “Kwest” Burns (2016-2020), and “Breathe Life 3” by Rob “Problak” Gibbs (2019) for Now + There. (The wall at 345 Blue Hill Ave is catty-corner from Gibbs’s first in the “Breathe Life” series.)

Murals, bringing diverse representations of Black life and culture, have popped up across Dorchester in recent years. These artworks emerge atop the foundation of African American scene painting from the 1930s and 40s. In particular, painter Allan Rohan Crite “biographer of urban African-American life in Boston,” nurtured a generation of Black artists, known as “The Boston Collective” to depict their daily lives, as well as Black narratives, as a way of claiming space and broadening cultural representation. Crite mentees include Mentoring Murals’ Goodnight (rotation one June-September 2021) and Johnetta Tinker (December 2021-March 2022).

Cover image: Gary Rickson, Africa is the Beginning, 1969.