An eye-catching mural, “Always in Bloom,” is officially complete after four years of hard work. Upper West Siders can see the finished product at the community garden on 84th and Amsterdam Ave., which also has several other art installations created as part of this project, including a flower and herb garden, three painted picnic tables, a chicken coop, beehives, and a mosaic entitled Peace Pond.
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The large-scale 54’ x 22’ art piece was created as part of a larger CITYarts initiative called Global HeART Warming, which “promotes awareness about the speed of climate change by empowering youth to envision and implement sustainable practices,” according to a recent press release.
We spoke with Tsipi Ben-Haim, Executive and Creative Director of CITYarts, a 35-year-old nonprofit public arts and education organization founded by Ben-Haim in 1989. Their programs reach across all five boroughs, having created over 300 murals and mosaics around the city. They also have an international presence with their Peace Walls and Pieces for Peace projects. The latter has been turned into an art book to drive donations for the organization.
“Our goal is to unite people around our projects, to have the murals or mosaics become a backdrop for celebrations, picnics, gatherings…This garden is like the jewel in the crown of the UWS,” Ben-Haim said proudly.
While Ben-Haim and coordinator Rice Fan organized and directed the project, the design and creation of “Always in Bloom” were led by artist Karen Fitzgerald in collaboration with students from The Urban Assembly School for Green Careers (UAGC) and the NYC Summer Youth Employment Program. The piece reflects themes of nature, growth, environmental appreciation, and sustainable living. Fitzgerald described how she worked closely with the students to conceptualize the design.
“A cornerstone of all CITYarts processes and projects is they are very youth community-centric,” Fitzgerald explained. “I had two cohorts of students that I worked with, and first I introduced them to some basic skills–I taught them contour drawing, collage techniques, and multi-layered planting. The mural already had the name ‘Always in Bloom,’ so together we brainstormed ideas–’how could we envision that scene? What could we come up with?’”
Fitzgerald used the student’s drawings and ideas as a jumping-off point to map out the giant mural. “I was very transparent about the process with them,” Fitzgerald told us. “They knew I was going to use their ideas and do drawings based on them. For example, the students had squash plants in the classroom, and they had a whole interesting story of a microecology happening on those plants. So the squash leaves became a dominant design element in the mural plan. Then, I took the mural plan back to the kids and I put it up on their Smartboard and we talked about it. It was very collaborative.” The students examined the design and gave feedback, requesting koi fish and chickens be added to reflect elements already present in the other pieces of artwork in the garden.
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Once the design was finalized, Fitzgerald worked with a crew of six students to fabricate the mural from July into early August in 2023. A celebration for the mural was held in 2023, and a different crew of three students took up the mantle in summer 2024.
“Mural work is really physical. It is physical, tough, hot work,” Fitzgerald said. “I think that’s one thing the kids learn– not just that painting will be fun, but the other side of that coin is that we have to wash brushes in buckets of water and walk lots of flights up the scaffolding to get to where we’re painting on the mural that day.”
“The crew was very lively. They wanted to learn and they were hardworking,” Fitzgerald adds. “It’s not about me working on that mural. It’s about the kids’ experience and the kids’ commitment to their community.”
Ben-Haim described the overarching goals of the Global HeART Warming program to us, and how the mural is an expression of their efforts to slow climate change. “We talk to the students about not just global warming and climate change, but the speed of it, and ask–how can we make the world a better place by reducing it? The climate, our life, our bodies, our age, everything is changing. That’s part of nature. But when we speak about the speed of climate change, then it’s a whole different ball game and people say, ‘hey, I’m with you on this.’”
A community ribbon-cutting ceremony will be scheduled after the mural scaffolding is removed and the whole piece is unveiled. CITYarts anticipate this will be in late August or early September with an exact date to be announced.
To explore more CITYarts initiatives and get involved, head to www.CITYarts.org.
