May is Mural Month
Keene, NH •fpamonadnock.org • Through May, 2023
New Hampshire leaf seekers have yet another outdoor visual delight in May is Mural Month—an ironic name for a gallery that is open 24/7/365. As a resourceful, innovative, and community-centered New England town, Keene is positioning its downtown as an outdoor gallery destination. In 2019, local residents organized, planned, and in some cases helped to design and execute 16 large Walldogs murals on local heroes (keenenh.gov/our-city/events/walldog-murals). Opening doors for that major undertaking was the work of Friends of Public Art (FPA) who in 2016 championed the idea of local artist and then professor at Keene State College (KSC), Rosemarie Bernardi. She conceived of this inside-out, brick-and-mortar gallery where curated art is freely available to the public.
Based on large-scale printmaking and the early 20th-century eco-friendly postering method of using wheat-paste as a reversible adhesive, Bernardi’s plan features regional, national, and international artists’ work alongside KSC student projects, mounted directly on the old brick walls. FPA negotiates and liaisons with building owners, city council, the Historic District Commission, and regional nonprofit Arts Alive!, building relationships that Bernardi describes as cooperative, supportive, and rewarding. After a year or so, she and a small team of volunteers help remove the work using a steamer and plenty of elbow grease so that the wall is ready for another installation. There is an art to the entire process. “All of it we’ve learned by making wonderful mistakes,” says Bernardi.
There is no official map to the wheat-paste installations as they rotate around Keene. Visitors can find Bernardi’s own 2021 installation In_Title_Meant along Diphthong Alley, a thematic series of hand-cut linoleum prints exploring text and image, some with color and one stitched with thread. The work holds aloft multiple readings combining the enigmatic lightness of Magritte tinged with something sinister and hidden. The fibrous paper fuses with the porous brick in such a way that the wall—all of its stories and everything it may hide—speaks through the image. As natural weathering mellows the hot-off-the-press print, the melding of wall and print introduces another layer of meaning out of the artist’s hands.
Regardless of the time of day or year, May is Mural Month has its alleys open!
—April Claggett