Rainbow-colored turkeys. Swirling mosaics. Painted utility boxes. One might have noticed a variety of public art appearing around Brookline over the past year, seemingly out of thin air. However, this is no magic trick. Behind each of these installations lies an artist who devoted countless hours, resources and thought into their work.
In 2022, the Select Board allocated $225,000 for commercial area public art and placemaking. Thanks to the Brookline Art Makes Community (BAMC) Public Art Initiative, born out of the American Rescue Plan Act, the town has seen an explosion of art installations in community spaces. Along with colorful turkey sculptures and decorated utility boxes, the town commissioned the installation of ten murals.
Before working with the BAMC, local artist Adam Doyle had never painted a large mural. Having grown up in Brookline, Doyle said the opportunity was a way for him to give back to the town that raised him.
“The image that I came up with really came from that place,” Doyle said. “It’s like, ‘How do I make something that reflects back my experience and what I learned and the love that I felt from this town embodied in a visual image?’ ”
Doyle’s mural, “The Enchanted Forest Dragon of Brookline,” is located in Washington Square and depicts a green dragon covered with flowering plants and Brookline-native wildlife.
“When I was thinking about this image, nature is not only something that I’m personally interested in, but it’s something which is really important for us going forward, especially now with more and more technology becoming part of our lives deeply affecting us: the way that we think, the way that we relate to the world and the way we relate to each other,” Doyle said.
Doyle said he hopes his mural will inspire people to connect with imagination, represented in the dragon.
“I want people to feel lit up and happy and have the flavor of nature and imagination be part of that. Because imagination is really important too,” Doyle said. “The technology doesn’t take away our imagination because we’re consuming so much and seeing so much. Imagination is so important because that’s how we create our lives.”
According to Aaron Norris, a senior economic development planner for Brookline and the project manager for the BAMC, the initiative’s goal is to make commercial areas more vibrant and boost foot traffic for local businesses.
“No matter how people were getting to the commercial areas, we really wanted to take this public art and then have them be able to notice it, be able to go to [the commercial areas],” Norris said. “It’s not only to try to draw people in, but also allow people to see things on their normal routes through the commercial areas.”
Not all of Brookline’s murals are made from paint, though. Local artist Bette Ann Libby’s piece “We Are Brookline” is a 6-by-10-foot mosaic made of pieces of mirror and glass on the side of the Brookline Bank in Brookline Village.
“I call it that because everybody is reflected in the mirror,” Libby said. “Even though you’re all broken up, you can see yourself. So by walking by it, you become part of it.”
The mosaic outlines prominent buildings in Brookline Village and features a glass photo negative of two women taken by Libby’s grandfather at the turn of the 20th century.
“The title of the piece is ‘We are Brookline,’ but it also is Brookline then and Brookline now, because those images were taken in Brookline,” Libby said. “They’ll bring something that’s 100 years old into the mosaic of today.”
Libby discovered mosaics eighteen years ago when she was tasked to create a work that could be hung on the wall for a fundraiser exhibition. As a potter, Libby said, her pieces couldn’t be mounted on a wall. Looking around her studio, she found a pile of broken pottery shards and used them to make a mosaic. Since then, Libby has created a number of community mosaics for the Children’s Hospital and one for the Coolidge Corner Library.
“The thing I like about public art is you don’t have to plan to see something artistic,” Libby said.“You don’t have to go into a museum. You don’t have to walk into a gallery. It’s just there. So I think that’s a really nice gift for people.”
Doyle said mural projects are crucial for local leaders to support because they elevate the town’s status as a supporter of local artists and widely available art.
“The town benefits from it because people feel more excited and inspired by the beauty that’s around them,” Doyle said. “This place we’re in right now is really mutually beneficial because the town benefits, artists benefit, and all the people benefit from it.”
