Payne Park Mural – 2020
I was selected to create a new mural in Payne Park, a newly renovated public park in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Pawtucket, RI. The mural is painted on the front, back, and sides of three freestanding walls, and covers roughly 820 square feet.
My goal was for this mural to read as a celebration of the Woodlawn neighborhood and Pawtucket at large. To do that, I sought to reference and depict the area's local landscape – architectural, natural, and social – through highlighting notable buildings, places and landmarks, with whimsical community scenes in the foreground. I hope this effort has resulted in a detailed, illustrative composition, one that could be used as a colorful, wholesome backdrop for playtime and performances in Payne Park – or, viewed more closely, might read like an “I Spy” for the local community.
Within the colorful blue-and-yellow margins on each wall are several mini-paintings that were contributed by local residents. A "community painting day" was held at the completion of the mural project, where local kids and families, as well as mural volunteers and interns, took over individual blank sections of the wall sections, and let their own creative mark upon the walls.
Painted in 2020, this project was commissioned by Pawtucket Commission of Arts and Culture and supported by the Rhode Island Foundation. This mural also benefitted from the assistance of two talented high school interns from the local Jacqueline Walsh School for the Arts.