Alex Ferror started coming up with designs for a mural at the Boys & Girls Club in Manchester weeks ago, but he didn’t formalize his main subjects — the “characters” — until meeting some of the kids. The artist had a Zoom call and talked to children from the club last week during a workshop. That enabled him to incorporate more elements into the colorful addition to the split-level wall in the rear of the building.
The artwork will come to life over the course of the city's 10-day mural festival. Ferror is known for conveying whimsy with magical adventures, such as an upside-down umbrella floating in the night sky, a boy floating away with balloons, and his signature character, a pink bear named Dom. “I thought the best idea would be to make a paper boat and fill it up with the kids — my characters,” he said.
By last Saturday, Ferror and a crew of volunteers started painting the designs as part of Arts Build Community’s second “Community Canvas Mural Program,” which will bring at least five new murals to the Queen City. Three are at the Boys & Girls Club, and others are on Amherst Street on buildings owned by the Palace Theatres. Ferror and four other featured artists will work until Sunday alongside a team of local artists.
James Chase, an associate professor at the Institute of Art and Design at New England College, who founded Arts Building Community, said the program is about community involvement. “I am over the moon to have the local artist all leveling up and out of their comfort zone with all different stories,” Chase said. He worked to find a mix of different artists.
“So many artists are coming out and asking, 'How can I be involved? How can I be one of these artists?'” Chase said. “It only opens up the opportunities for what the next version can look like.” The program was made possible by numerous sponsorships and raised more than $25,000 on Patronicity.
The program includes artist talks and other events throughout the week. Behind the Palace Theatre, Ambar Ruiz is painting a mural that features flowers, including the purple lilac, New Hampshire's state flower. Ruiz says most of the flowers were based on pictures she took around Manchester.
Ruiz moved to the city three years ago after splitting time between Puerto Rico and Kansas. “The inspiration for this is I have this faith that we get what we give,” she said. “So all of us artists are a garden blooming.
We are really trying to plant a seed. We are all really trying to invest and put something into the city and we want to watch it bloom.” Nearby, another local artist, Jozimar Matimano painted a portrait of himself with his son, Kingsley, who is 3 months old.
He spent his early childhood in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa before his family fled the violence there and arrived at a refugee camp in Uganda when he was 10 and New Hampshire at 21. “I was trying to represent myself being here and being part of the community,” he said. The reactions to the murals have been positive.
“Someone was driving and they were screaming like, ‘Oh, my God, thanks for flowers year-round,” Ruiz said. Ferror is back in Manchester after participating in the Community Canvas Mural Program in 2022. The pink bear, Dom, made an appearance as a teddy bear being lifted alongside a boy in the air by balloons.
Dom is front and center in the new mural. “This time he got a little bigger, so the kids are interacting with him,” Ferror said. “He is almost living the adventure.
” Ferror will use more than 30 colors of Montana GOLD spray paint in creating his mural, including three shades of pink: “Pink Pink,” “Shock Pink” and “Shock Pink Light.” Now living in Atlanta, Ferror has done work around the world and earlier returned to his native São Paulo, Brazil, to paint a mural, which also features Dom. Ferror asked the kids a simple question: If you were on an adventure with your friends, what would you bring with you? Answers included water bottles, pets, headphones, flowers and a basketball, which are all included in the artwork.
He started finalizing his sketch for the mural after the workshops to include highlighting the diversity of the Boys & Girls Club and the greater Manchester population. “It has been a fun project and fun concept to work with from the beginning,” Ferror said. “I was either using the kids' characteristics or the kids' input.
” He wanted to make sure the students who took part in the workshops felt that they co-created the piece, which is already getting attention from the kids participating in summer programs. “Knowing that this imagery, this mural will be part of these kids' memories for the rest of their lives is very important to me,” Ferror said. He has never done a two-level mural before with certain elements hanging over the edge.
He promises more surprises as the festival continues. Ferror couldn’t include all the pets, so he compromised by featuring his own dog, Amelie, who jumped up on his lap during the Zoom call. “All the kids went crazy,” he said.
“They know that there is a pet there representing all of them.” [email protected].
