I Painted a Switchbox

I won a Visual Artists Fellowship from the Somerville Arts Council, and they require awardees to perform a community benefit, so I painted the switchbox at 129 Somerville Avenue, in front of Target.

Lately I have been obsessed with trees, especially in large masses, because living in the Brickbottom neighborhood, I so rarely get to see a mature, full-blown tree. Because of the Green Line construction, all the weedy trees behind Brickbottom were razed and the landscape utterly denuded. I started looking at online images of aerial shots of forests and found it so soothing. When I started painting those images, I couldn't wait to go into the studio and bathe in the greenery. I wanted to bring a little bit of that feeling to the area in front of Target, which is also concrete-clad. I based the design of the electrical box on a painting I recently finished, which is hanging in the Somerville Media Center in Union Sq. until 8/12/19. It depicts babies in a little boats drifting above a sea of trees. The words say, "Where Do They Go When They Sleep?"

I wanted to use a gentle image because I feel that life is currently stressful enough as it is, that I didn't want to add an extra challenge to passersby, but I wanted to give people something to wonder about while they wait for the bus or go about their errands. So I hope it holds a little bit of mystery, on top of being pleasant.