In the final days of July, neighbors on Baker Street and Ansonia Road in West Roxbury spotted a man on a crane spray painting the side of the Joyce Kilmer K-8 School. When people began to perceive that it was a mural coming together, community members started to approach Thomas “Detour” Evans. Based in Denver, Detour typically works on large-scale pieces, including sculptures and murals. He is also known for his work in portraiture, with one photography exhibition, “They Still Live,” gaining national attention. His murals typically include human characters set against bright backgrounds. This was his first time working on a piece in Boston.
The majority of residents in West Roxbury who approached Detour—and those who posted on community Facebook pages—complimented the piece in progress, an image depicting four children looking out into the distance over a colorful backdrop containing bright reds, yellows, purples, and blues titled Together, We Rise. But in the midst of the positive responses, there was also immediate pushback from other community members, one of whom went as far as calling the police.
The project was first initiated by Kilmer art teacher Arianne O’Connor, who applied for a new program managed by the Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture (MOAC) called A Canvas of Culture: Murals at Boston Public Schools. The program is the result of a partnership with Street Theory, a creative agency founded by curator Liza Quiñonez focused on large-scale art pieces. In 2023, Street Theory was also selected as the mural consultant for the City of Boston. According to Quiñonez, Detour was one of twelve artists chosen from a pool of 163 applicants. She also added that his artwork went through three rounds of revisions by the MOAC, stakeholders, and a selection of school staff before it was finalized.
“Everything about A Canvas of Culture felt like it was meant for me to find,” O’Connor shared, “so I poured my heart into the application, with the central focus on the individuals who would be impacted the most by receiving it, our incredible students.” Once the Kilmer was selected as a location, Quiñonez met with O’Connor and other school staff members via Zoom and presented the virtual portfolios of seven potential artists. The staff selected their top three choices, with Detour being the first. “There were fifteen to twenty different [site] options,” Detour said, “and I landed on Joyce Kilmer. I did the Google search and everything and saw where it was and said, ‘Let me apply for that school right there.’” Other schools selected for the mural project include the The Rafael Hernández Dual Language K-8 School in Roxbury and Charlestown High School.
The partnership began with relationship building. O’Connor started by, as she puts it, “organizing a series of mini assemblies across both our lower and upper campuses to be able to introduce Detour to as many students and staff as possible.” Detour flew in to spend three days with the school community. During some of the sessions, students drew ideas for the piece. “The kids at the Joyce Kilmer school were the biggest inspiration,” said Detour. “They were drawing everything from Celtics [players] to baseball to donuts. [The students loved] color and wanted everything to be really big and impactful. That’s where I am, with that intersection of doing a lot of big figurative pieces and throwing a lot of color in there.”
Despite the connection with and buy-in from the school, some residents outside of the immediate community were initially confused about the purpose of the piece when it was in progress. Around the same time news of the mural appeared on community Facebook pages, a link to an online article was posted that contained the transcription of a 311 complaint filed by a West Roxbury resident. “I have lived here all my 58 years,” the complaint reads, “… we the the [sic] community was [sic] never informed. … We don’t want this!!!” The person goes on to call the art work “illegal” and “graffiti” and ends with the statement that West Roxbury is “Suburban [sic] of Boston . Not Down town [sic] Boston ..” In another local neighborhood page, someone commented under a link to a West Roxbury/Roslindale Bulletin article about the mural: “Please tell me this is a joke? And the surrounding neighbors approved of this? This is horrible.”
The community response escalated on the afternoon of August 1 when a neighbor called the Boston police department (BPD) with a report of “people spray painting the side of the school” according to the police report. BPD responded by sending three police cruisers to the location, but they quickly determined that Detour was supposed to be there. A neighbor who witnessed the interaction reported that they “caught a glimpse of a neighbor trying to plead her case with BPD.”
“After we learned that the police were called to the Kilmer School, many of us from the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture visited the artists working on Canvas of Culture murals to show our support,” shared Karin Goodfellow, the MOAC’s director of public art.
In the community response to Together, We Rise, a question surfaced: where do murals belong? It was clear that residents in protest of the piece believed that a neighborhood like West Roxbury should be excluded from this art form that the 311 caller conflated with “graffiti.”
I posed the question of the mural’s place in West Roxbury to Andy Rodrigue, a neighbor I connected with in an online community group. Rodrigue is a Kilmer K-8 school parent who also lives directly across the street from the mural. “I don’t know of a place where public art doesn’t have a place. That’s kind of the point, it’s for the public. It can bring people together, inspire them, and give them a sense of belonging. I’m at a loss to say why people would feel as though these qualities don’t belong in a public schoolyard,” Rodrigue said. He also shared that, as an architect, he is especially committed to this point of view. “We strive to find ways to ‘activate’ spaces, to find ways to gather, interact, build relationships, and adapt those spaces to fit a user’s individual and social needs. Public art works in the same way.”
Resident Michael Fagone, who was active in the conversation within the community groups, was also enthusiastic to share his support for the piece. “For me, I just love the way the City has been using art around the city—first on the utility boxes and now on school buildings. As someone who attended kindergarten at the Kilmer, I think it’s a gorgeous piece of art.”
Residents in support of the piece in community groups saw it not only as something that belonged on the school wall but as something that would inspire the students and change how they interacted in the space.
When he arrived, Detour could already tell that this could be a community that would be slow to warm to his art: “Coming to this neighborhood, I can tell there are a lot of people rooted in the community that has been here for a really long time and for a long time this has been only a brick wall. That’s what they are used to. Murals are always something that just lands on you and so having something super colorful on something that has been brick for so long is definitely shocking. Sometimes even just seeing the process of how I do things can be shocking because at times it is just colors being thrown at the wall.” But he was not intimidated by some people’s initial response. As the mural began to take shape and the figures appeared, Detour noticed that people began to react more positively.
“I reflect on the positive impact this project has brought to us,” said O’Connor. She continued: “Supporters of the mural have created a chain reaction and excitement that this project now exists in our community.” Rodrigue mentioned that there has been a “swelling of neighborhood pride.” He added, “Of course, if it didn’t make someone angry, can it even be considered art?”
Detour is hopeful that painting the mural was also an opportunity to educate the community: “It’s an opportunity to show kids how murals are created and to show the community how murals are created.”
