A young Webster artist has helped transform a plain building in Rochester’s southwest neighborhood into a magnificent work of art.
For several days recently, Webster Thomas senior Martin Carey spent many volunteer hours helping Brazilian artist Eder Muñiz create a breathtaking mural on the Montgomery Neighborhood Center on Cady St., in Rochester’s Southwest neighborhood.
The mural, which measures an impressive 15 by 30 feet, depicts a fanciful scene with a lush garden, several creatures, and a huge woman’s face partially obscured by a gigantic blue swan. It took four days to complete, from Thursday Sept. 23 to Sunday Sept. 26.
Martin decribes the finished project as,
a beautiful mesh between all the parties involved. The urban ecologists who work in the garden in front of it (are represented) in the scenes that take up most of the left side of the mural, and the swan along the woman’s face represents SWAN, which works out of the building.
The woman is a singer from Salvador, Brazil.
The project was organized by the Southwest Area Neighborhood Association (SWAN), which calls the center home. SWAN’s director, Tiffany Owens, knew Martin from his volunteer work with the agency and arranged for him to join the project.
She wrote,
Martin’s father is an amazing partner to S.W.A.N and once he gained knowledge of the mural, he asked if Martin could participate, and we jumped at the opportunity to have him meet and work with the visiting artist.
Martin came every day and worked tirelessly. As young people from the neighborhood stopped by, he demonstrated extreme patience and care in answering their questions and joining in their excitement about the process.
Martin Carey is an amazing individual with a heart of gold.
It was clearly a life-changing experience for Martin. He said,
It was a great opportunity for me to be able to hang out with such an experienced artist and really be able to learn the different techniques he used, what he used, how he used them, and actually see and go through the process with him. It was awesome. And he’s such a great guy too, super nice to me the whole time…. He gave me proper stuff to do.
Martin is currently studying AP Art with Webster Thomas art teacher Todd Stahl. He plans to continue his art studies after graduation and is looking at several colleges, including Flinders University in Australia. (“They have a good concept art program… (It) looks like a lot of fun and I would love to travel ouside of the states.”)
And perhaps there are more murals in his future?
I definitely want to go on to do some murals of my own at some point and this has really inspired me to start to chase after that more. Before it was kind of like, “That would be cool but it doesn’t seem possible.” Then after this, I went “Oh, this is something that’s plausible, that could happen some day.”
Next time you’re in the area, check out the mural. It’s on the west side of the building at 10 Cady St.
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Lovely story. Ray of sunshine for our too often cloudy days. Striking art!