Bringing communities together:
The words “Greetings from Newton” are painted onto a dark-colored wall, with a white outline reminiscent of a postage stamp framing the words. The “Greetings From” is in non-bold cursive, while “Newton” is the center point in a bold, detailed image within the letters.
The details include the painted images as a capture of the elementary, middle and high schools of the town. Along with other popular landmarks of the location. A blue sky with greenery, flowers and a river is in the background of the stamp-like image.
Caren Olmsted is a muralist based in Basking Ridge, NJ. Every piece she has been commissioned to create comes with a story of people in the community coming together to get their hands involved in the painting.
She said her design process roughly goes as follows: first, she is commissioned to design and work with whoever requested her work. Then, a lot of research about the town or location where the piece is being placed and sketches it out either on her computer or in a sketchbook.
After which, she sends it in for approval from the client, and once okay, gets to work on bringing the sketch to life. According to Olmsted, a project can take around six months to a year to see through.
She tries to keep the vision of the client as a priority when designing a piece, knowing they are the ones who make the investments for the artwork; she wants them to be happy with what is given.
“One of the highest compliments that I feel like I get is that when I’m done with a piece that people say this is just mind blowing, they’re like you just knew what needed to be there,” Olmsted said, “it feels like it’s always been here and it’s just perfect, and so capturing the essence of the town or the community or the school or whoever it is in service of that’s what I, my aim.”
Olmsted said she had always enjoyed painting growing up, so much so that she went to college for theater design and got a second degree in art education, which led her to be a middle school art teacher for a few years.
She has painted around 400 to 500 murals in her career so far, her first piece being for a dry cleaner located in Asheville, NC, who wanted a piece for their centennial, in which Olmsted has referenced a historic photo of the location, according to her.
“I always say it’s the one that I am working on right now, because they evolve, and I just am always looking for ways to improve and engage myself and keep myself really interested,” Olmsted said
With the desire to work with each community while painting, she has experienced a few moments of the magic of coming together.
Olmsted said that when she was painting the “Greetings from Newton” mural, she had a volunteer and his wife come to help. Olmsted asked them to paint the entrance of the middle school and a football helmet. She ended up learning through them that he used to be a coach, and she was a middle school teacher, and they met under that doorway.
Throughout all these stories and experiences, she feels that a message within all her work is honoring the people who these pieces serve.
“A celebration of community, that’s really at the end of the day, the bulk of my murals are about community kindness, celebration, really recognizing all the good that we do have when we lean on each other,” Olmsted said.
The Graffiti Way:
Think of a 20-foot by 20-foot mural on the side of a prison, spelling out the word Trenton with every letter being designed and curated by a different artist; there are six in total.
One of those is an artist whose craft is focused on the style and messaging of graffiti art, and whose love for creativity runs wild.
Leon Rainbow is an artist located in Trenton, NJ. His work and art are inspired by the trends and style of graffiti art, and he does commission work alongside graffiti pieces, according to Rainbow.
“I’ve always had graffiti as a thing, so I could always go to that rather than just doing all the commission work.” Rainbow said, “I feel like if you do all commission work, your work loses something. loses a little bit of that edge, or it loses a little bit of that energy that comes from the street, so I try to balance it with doing traditional graffiti and then doing like commission murals.”
Rainbow said he was always interested in doing art as a kid. Growing up in San Jose, California, he saw examples of the art style through 80’s movies such as “Style Wars”, “Wild Style” and “Beat Street.”
Expressing his creativity through his graffiti is something he values. Rainbow said, even though this graffiti art and mural work have a similar setup and structure, he enjoys having the creative freedom that isn’t there with commissioned work.
According to Rainbow, he feels one unique aspect of his art is how he uses geometric patterns to visually separate parts of the piece and give a stained-glass look.
He frequently paints with another artist who goes by Busta Art; vibing to music while the two of them work on a piece is one of his favorite parts of doing graffiti art, along with the whole movement of painting. He spoke.
Working with other artists of a piece comes with a lot of positives and negatives, he said; for example, the piece can get done faster, but it takes some time to learn about the other people’s work and get into a flow and work past creative differences.
“It was really cool to hang out with different artists, and that’s one of the things that I find most rewarding about kind of doing public art and things; it’s just like traveling or just meeting different people and hanging out, or getting to know some people better,” Rainbow said.
Some other ways Rainbow has gone about getting inspiration for his work are looking into what’s currently going on in the world and what needs to be said or seen.
Having done pieces inspired by the COVID pandemic, all including the detail of a small white flag with a red heart to tie them all together and keep hope alive. Along with pieces with themes of peace and anti-violence located in Trenton with handprints of the people of that community, Rainbow aims to push valuable messages and meanings into his art.
“I feel like a lot of what I do is just striving to enjoy life and enjoy the process of creating. That’s what I kind of try to enjoy.” Rainbow said, “Even with graffiti, I try to just be there in the moment as much as possible, and I feel like that’s really the freeing part of art, and also like the therapeutic part of creating art.”
Interested in seeing more of Olmsted’s or Rainbow’s work, or want to message either of them about a commission? Here are both their websites: https://olmstedmurals.com/public-art/ & https://www.leonrainbow.com/leon-rainbow-mural-artist-bio/