The following write-up was submitted by Site Projects.
In the center of Fair Haven, a patient audience sits on the ground in the shade of a tree watching the artists — three of them — work paints and brushes, sometimes from ladders, sometimes sitting on the sidewalk. A mash-up of black scribbles covering parts of the wall is being transformed into recognizable figures: the legs of a horse, perhaps the front end of a trolley.
A large mural is in the works at the corner of Grand Avenue and Ferry Street on a pastel blue brick wall. (Incidentally, neither the artist of the mural nor Site Projects chose the pastel color of the brick wall.)
The artist is Russell Rainbolt, who for 30+ years has been painting murals, billboards and very large renderings of superheroes. Rainbolt is assisted by the portrait painter Katro Storm, who for 30+ years has turned flat canvases into the faces of real people. Another local artist, Cynthia Celente, works as an apprentice alongside the guys.
Site Projects, the arts commissioning group, selected Rainbolt to design the mural intended as a pair with the 2021 David de la Mano mural on a (large) white wall on Crown Street near the corner of State. This earlier mural is about the freedman William Lanson, who lived in this area in the first half of the 19th century. Rainbolt’s current mural depicts Fair Haven in the last half of the 19th century. Site Projects expects that these artworks will inspire more questions than they answer— one of the goals of public art. For more than 20 years, Site Projects has been commissioning public artworks in New Haven.
The current mural is yet to be titled and yet to be completed. Site Projects invites suggestions as to the title and urges people to go watch the mural as it develops — spend a day in the shade watching the artists work.