Lynn resident Habibatou Bah loves to walk through her downtown, awestruck by the colorful building-sized murals splashed across the brick walls of the neighborhood.
This summer, the 17-year-old high school student says the experience is even more inspirational because she is part of the process — painting alongside professional artists with a select group of young creatives to brighten up city walls.
She’s not only producing artwork, but in an interesting feedback loop, she and her cohort of have been working on a mural on the side of a four-story building depicting young people doing art — including herself.
Bah says the experience is — “trippy.”
“I remember when we first drew, I was like, there’s no way my nose takes up this big of a box. Like, it was crazy, it was surreal,’’ she said. “But honestly, looking at it now, I’m so happy. I think I look great, and everyone else as well who’s in the mural.”
Bah is part of a new program called Classroom to the Streets run by Beyond Walls, a 10-year-old nonprofit that has helped to make this former mill city a premier public art destination in Massachusetts.
Lynn Arts and Culture Planner, Marysa Angelli, considers Lynn to be an “outdoor museum” with building sides as the primary canvas. There’s roughly 100 Lynn murals visible on city streets.
“There isn’t anywhere else in Massachusetts that I think even comes to mind as the same scale” she said.
Launched in 2016, Beyond Walls has focused on creating more art and light in downtown Lynn — contributing about 80 huge murals to the mix. One depicts kids laying on a sidewalk holding chalk and playing with a tin telephone connected by string. Another shows a young man with a black crossbody bag, headphones around his neck, holding a new pair of kicks, by the shoelaces, over his shoulders.
Founder Al Wilson says Beyond Walls began as a group of volunteers who were worried about public safety in Lynn — residents were getting hit by cars under unlit train underpasses.
“That was our first focus, was trying to figure out a way to light those bridges that had been unlit for decades,” he said.
Three years later, the organization was officially designated as a nonprofit. It’s funded partly by the Barr Foundation, the Mass Cultural Council and MassDevelopment.
The nonprofit holds weekend walking tours to explore the murals and brings art and tours into other areas like Haverhill, Holyoke and Fall River.
“Lynn has become a showcase for the very best in public art and street art, probably in New England,” Wilson said.
Classroom to the Streets was launched last year after organizers saw young people enjoying the mural tours. The program now incorporates ideas for artwork from teenagers and educators in the Lynn Public Schools and St. Mary’s High School, a private Catholic school in this North Shore city.
This community excitement about public art is especially important in Lynn and other so-called Gateway Cities, smaller Massachusetts municipalities that have long worked to revitalize their downtowns after decades of disinvestment.
Rosario Ubiera-Minaya, executive director of Raw Art Works, a nonprofit youth development organization, says she moved to Lynn when she was 15 years old.
The city, with a population of about 103,000 people, has a per capita income of about $35,000 a year, about half of that in the Boston metro area, according to Census data. More than 43 percent of those living in the city are foreign-born, data shows.
When Ubiera-Minaya arrived, she said she often heard the phrase, “Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin” — but instead, found the opposite.
“There’s so much happening in very positive ways in the community that is combating that term with positivity and amazing things,” she said.
Raw Art Works also has contributed to Lynn’s culture through youth work, art therapy and installations for over 30 years.
This year, for example, the organization was awarded a grant to paint the asphalt in the city’s Central Square, with the goal to calm traffic and increase walker safety. The artwork features bold colors like hot pink, deep blue and a pastel green under thick outlines creating portraits of historical figures with ties to Lynn. There’s a path with different shoe prints in recognition of the shoe industry.
Ubiera-Minaya says the public art means to give young people a message that they have, “the opportunity to be authors of the story that they want to tell over their city.”
Summer artwork
On a recent summer morning, a cohort from Classrooms to the Streets geared up with paint cans and water bottles to hoist themselves onto a lift and work on the walls.
With feet in the air, students were strapped into safety harnesses to avoid falling.
The two-week program brings together rising high school seniors, local educators and artists from around the world. The murals, directly inspired by students, touch on subjects of community, connection and hobbies.
Bah’s program mentor was Megan Oldhues, a Toronto-based artist who specializes in graffiti art and street scenes. The Lynn teen said she learned from Oldhues about a gridding technique, used to transform smaller designs into larger murals.
“It’s like an alien language is what she called it, but she puts so many different symbols and markings — it makes it harder for you to get lost while you’re painting,” Bah said.
The program doesn’t just benefit students. Camryn Reynolds, a Lynn art teacher, is in her second year as a Beyond Walls Educator Fellow. She said the experience has allowed her to better know the community she teaches in.
The program also is an opportunity to show students how art can be a career, she said.
“Being able to show that to students, that they [artists] get paid good money to do this,’’ she said. “It’s inspiring and it shows them that there’s another path and they can explore a career in the arts.”
Ubiera-Minaya says public artwork also is a vehicle to foster other relationships and help the economy. Murals can attract people to spend money on local businesses.
“If they come in through the art, they stay for dinner and they buy in the shops,” she said.
The mural Bah worked on was inspired by a photo taken on her first day in the program — showing her crafting with other students.
The painting is spread across a red-brick building, showing seven people gathered at a wooden table. There are cups of coffee, water bottles and construction paper, tape and colored pencils.
The mural is now complete — a warm-toned wall painting towering over a parking lot. Bah said she recently saw a group of kindergarten students walk by and look up to see her face on the side of the building.
She also recently got to show her mother what she had helped create.
“She was like, ”What? That’s actually you?“ she said. “And, you know, I took pictures and I sent it to friends and family and everyone’s really excited.”
Bah said the experience of helping translate the artwork from design, sketch and finally to a painted mural, has inspired her to step outside of her comfort zone.
“That’s definitely something I’ll be taking with me every time I’m making something big, which I know I’ll do.”
This story is part of an ongoing series called Gateway Cities Unlocked produced by the GBH News Equity & Justice Unit, which is funded by the Barr Foundation. Reporters are visiting all 26 Gateway Cities this year to talk to residents as part of the project. Have a story to tell? Reach out to us at equityandjustice@wgbh.org.
