A colorful flower arrangement has sprung up in the most unlikely of places in Andrew Square, elegantly draping the side of a commercial building at the corner of Preble and Vinton streets.
Breathtaking in their large scale and rich hues, the flowers are part of a mural called Nations in Bloom, a public art project is designed to bring joy to the Andrew Square neighborhood. The meaning behind the mural is even deeper than that.
The flowers depicted in the mural represent the various nationalities of those who live in Andrew Square and call the neighborhood home.
If ever a wall begged for a mural, the bleak concrete expanse at the rear of 313 Old Colony Avenue was one. Last fall, leaders of the Andrew Square Civic Association approached Jay Patel, the building’s owner, with their idea of upgrading the wall with public art. Jay approved and they took the next step, applying to the South Boston Community Development Foundation (SBCDF), receiving funding to kick off the project.
“I was so happy. It makes the building look good and it makes the neighborhood look good,” Jay says of the mural, now underway.
The artist ASCA selected is Liv Mileika, a nurse-turned-muralist who has devoted herself to creating vibrant murals for the past two and a half years. Brainstorming with a friend, Liv conceptualized Nations in Bloom. She has been working on the wall for about two weeks in June and has quickly brought the colorful flowers to life.
“This area has come a long way but there’s still a lot to be done to uplift and bring beauty to it. I think to have people know of the mural and not only appreciate it but know what it stands for is so important. I always gravitate towards florals in my art because of their natural beauty, but I love that they hold a lot of meaning in this,” Liv says.
She considers the Andrew Square mural her most ambitious and impactful public art project to date.
“This is really representative of my style as an artist and this is the biggest wall I’ve done. I work with a lot of small business owners and have done a number of private/interior murals, so I love that this is truly a public art piece that everyone can enjoy. This is a great representation of everything I’m passionate about because it’s a creative way we can bring life to the community.”
The project required Liv to research the types of flowers that would represent Andrew Square’s various nationalities, in some cases finding that one flower could represent several of them. “For Ireland, I didn’t want to do a shamrock,” she says. “We have enough shamrocks in South Boston. So, I looked up other varieties of flowers that represent Ireland and found the Easter Lily. It ended up fitting the composition perfectly.” The Polish culture is also strongly represented in Andrew Square, especially in the area’s Polish Triangle, and is represented by a red poppy.
Liv estimates the rear wall of 313 Old Colony at about 1,500 square feet, and the size has been a welcome challenge for her. “This mural is pushing me to test my abilities in new ways because I’ve never done a wall this big. I’m also used to a mural taking me about a week, so I had to mentally prepare for this.”
To start, with the numerous grout lines and crevices on a brick wall this large, Liv ran out of paint more quickly than she expected. (For anyone wondering, Liv uses acrylic paint, and she notes, “It’s just like you paint your house with.”)
She also is doing much of her painting from a scissor lift, which is the safest way for her to reach the top of the wall, which rises about 20 feet from the sidewalk. Liv also employed a new technique for scaling the mural before she started the actual painting.
“I had to use a doodle grid to give me reference points when I was transferring my sketch onto the wall. With this method, you cover the whole wall, top to bottom and side to side with random doodles. I would just make them up as I went along. Then I took a picture of the entire wall and put it into my drawing software where I already had the mural design mocked up to the dimensions of the wall. I then overlay my design on the picture of the wall with the doodles and it gives me a loose guide of where to sketch my lines to make sure everything is to scale. If I tried to freehand this I would have lost my mind, it’s just too big.”
By now, the doodles are covered by the flowers, so people are not as “freaked out” by them, Liv says. “But when the doodles first went on the wall, people were like ‘What’s going on with that?’”
As the flowers have taken form and Nations in Bloom has blossomed, Liv is getting overwhelmingly positive feedback. “People are stopping and saying, ‘It looks awesome’ and ‘great job.’”
Among the mural’s biggest fan is Ahmed Kasem, an owner of Virtual Food Court, the business housed at 313 Old Colony Avenue. Ahmed has allowed Liv to store her paints and brushes in the basement when she finishes each evening, and he sends food out to her from his kitchen nearly every day.
“It’s a huge mural and it looks very, very beautiful,” says Ahmed. “This place will become a landmark. A lot of my customers love it. They tell me, ‘You need to take care of this so people don’t mess it up.’”
