Teens brighten up Dudley with mural

Jeremy Schwab

The teens on the city’s Mural Crew in Dudley Square knew they were doing something right when they heard passersby saying, in one form or another, “Thanks for beautifying the neighborhood.”

Twenty-five teenagers from across the city have spent this summer painting highly visible murals on the walls of businesses in an attempt to add color and beauty to colorless neighborhood buildings.

Split into two crews, they have tackled six different murals across the city. Last week, one crew was deep into its work painting grocery shopping scenes on a long swath of wall outside the Tropical Foods market on Washington Street outside Dudley Square.

Dorchester resident Lionel Hashim Lafond, 17, took a break from the intense mid-day heat and humidity last week to sit under a scaffolding and give his assessment of what his crew was accomplishing.

“It brightens the whole neighborhood up,” he said. “This wall will be the main attraction once people walk by.”

Some teens said they were glad they found work creating art with their peers rather than working in retail or in an office.

“I didn’t expect to get this type of job, because most other [city-funded] jobs are office jobs,” said Charlestown resident Susan Shian, 16. “You learn about yourself and about art techniques. Also, you meet other people.”

Like thousands of other youths, the teenagers applied in February to the city for summer employment by calling the city’s Hope Line. They then requested placement on the Mural Crew, went to interviews and showed their artistic work to the mural program’s directors.

“It’s pretty much first come, first served,” said Mayor’s Mural Program Assistant Director Gregg Bernstein. “They don’t have to be artists. Samples of work for some kids can be real elaborate oil paintings. For others, it could be Mickey Mouse drawn on a piece of paper.”

The key, according to Bernstein, is a passion to learn and create art.

“Mural painting doesn’t pay much,” said Roxbury resident Erin Peart, 17. “You do it for the experience.”

Peart has painted several murals with the crew in previous summers, including paintings on the Hi-Lo Supermarket in Jamaica Plain and Leo’s Market in Grove Hall and a mural of Frederick Douglass on Tremont Street.

For a group of individuals to create a collective mural, they need a supervisor who knows what he is doing and can see the end product.

Bernstein has supervised the Mural Crew for the past decade. He uses a grid system to make the work easier for the young mural painters.

Instead of having to reproduce entire figures straight from a paper sketch, Bernstein outlines the entire mural with the figures and objects encased in a detailed grid.

The grid is then replicated on the wall, so that the teens know which body parts and objects should be located in which squares of the grid.

“If we didn’t have the grid, we’d spend a lot of time adjusting the proportions,” said Bernstein.

Bernstein shoots hundreds of photographs of his subjects — in this case, shoppers and employees at Tropical Foods — then places the best images in a collage. In one image a man originally photographed in a loading dock instead stands next to some produce. Whatever makes the image most appealing to the eye is what Bernstein tries to do.

While in the past he had to splice photographs directly into a collage, now Bernstein uses PhotoShop to adjust proportions or create mirror images of figures so they face the way he wants.

During their days in Dudley, the teens have been complemented on their work by people from all walks of life. Homeless men have thanked them for their work.

Tropical Foods owner Ronn Garry Sr. also thanked the teens for their work.

“The exterior prior to the mural was in terrible condition,” he said. “It had about five billion staples in it from all the political ads and whatnot. These kids have done a really nice job.”