The "Love Your Block" Program provided the City of Hartford with a $1,000 grant in order to create The Art Box Lot. The project began in April 2019 with communicating with the residents of Frog Hollow about what they would like to see in such a space. Many community members even helped construct the lot, building garden boxes and installing benches. Lindaluz Carrillo and Mina Elise created the first mural which has since been painted over. New murals are being installed all the time, with the most recent one painted in April 2022 as part of the Trinity International Hip Hop Festival.

The Art Box Lot occupies a formerly vacant lot on Park Street. The space features a community garden, a projector wall for film screenings, and most notably, several large murals. Each of the murals have been designed by local artists and they celebrate the history and diversity of Frog Hollow. The Art Box Lot also frequently collaborates with nonprofits and other organizations to hold events.

The Art Box Lot

This tour line follows a range of eleven public art projects throughout the Frog Hollow neighborhood. The murals differ in time period, subject, and and style, making for a unique blend of artwork. Not only do these pieces add a splash of beauty to the area, they help promote the creativity present in and around the neighborhood. The information in this tour is thanks very much to Lindaluz Carillo, a local artist and muralist.

Lindaluz Carillo: "This mural used to be on Park and Main at one point, but once it started building out the apartment, you know, they had to find a new location. This was that, which actually works a lot better, I think, just because it is closer to what we have already here in the garden. It's a nice addition."

Julie Bergeron created this installation in collaboration with Our Piece of the Pie, which is a local nonprofit aiming to empower youth. The three main panels each depict a stage in food production: first the food is harvested, then it is sold, and finally it is enjoyed! This garden is one of three sites in the Grow Hartford program.

Public Garden

Lindaluz Carillo: "It's like, I wanted to do something that represented hope because I felt like during the beginning of COVID, a lot of turmoil, people were just, you know, dying, and dealing with a lot of suffering, emotional, physical, you know. Whether you had COVID or had family members that experienced it, you know, very traumatic time. So I thought that this, you know, kind of fit the aesthetic. And then Mina, you know, she ended up doing these hands that kind of look like wings, so you can actually stand there, right? And then just take a picture."

This mural was a collaboration between Lindaluz Carillo and Mina Ellis. They created the piece at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The words read "Hoy miro hacia el futuro", or, "Today I look forward to the future", and they are from salsa musician Frankie Ruiz's song "Esta Vez Sí Voy Pa' Encima". The artists wanted to present a message of hope amidst the confusion and fear of the pandemic. The artwork can be read as both outstretched hands and wings.

Hoy Miro Hacia El Futuro

Pacheco primarily works in sculpture, so this is a unique example of his work. He grew up in Hartford, but now lives and works in Worcester, MA.Lindaluz Carillo: "The AIDS epidemic. Yeah, it was affecting a lot of cultures, you know? It wasn't just one particular. And I think the stereotype was that 'Oh, this specific group of people,' you know, 'queer, gay, trans', but it did impact a lot of people, people from different cultures, so I think it's just building awareness of that. It's not just one group."

Victor Pacheco created this mural in 1997. It is painted on the side of the Caribe Auto Supply building and depicts the word "AIDS" in large block letters next to the flags of a variety of countries from across the globe and the faces of different people. The note in the bottom left hand corner of the mural reads "Dedicated to those struggling with HIV or AIDS". The piece challenges stereotypes about HIV/AIDS, asserting that anyone can be affected by the disease regardless of their identity.

AIDS

Lindaluz Carillo: "I got in contact with Shiro. She's a graffiti artist, a Japanese graffiti artist, but also has traveled all over the world. At the time she was in New York. I don't know if she's still there. So I had reached out to her via Instagram just to see, you know, if she would be down to come and paint. She said yeah. She came out, you know, we picked her up, and she was here for like a span of two to three days. She did a workshop with, at the Hip Hop Festival with Youth For Change, taught some kids how to do, you know, the basics of graffiti and tagging and all that."Shiro also created two more murals in Hartford for 2022's Trinity International Hip Hop Festival at the Art Box Lot and Heaven Skate Park.

This mural was created by Japanese graffiti artist Shiro. She created the piece with the help of students from the organization Youth for Change, whom she first taught in a workshop how to paint graffiti. The mural only took about half a day to complete, and the artists were so invested that they stayed long after nightfall, with car headlights pointed at the wall to help them see.

Unique Hair Studio

The mural began in 2017 with the vertical Puerto Rican flag to the left of the main entrance. At this time, the outside of the store was mostly painted yellow and brown, with green accents. In 2018, the other flags were added, and the rest of the store was painted white, blue, and red to match the color scheme.

This mural decorates both of the exposed walls of the Hermanas Grocery Store. One side of the building features a large Puerto Rican flag, with another on the front alongside the flag of the Dominican Republic. Furthermore, when the shop is closed, a metal sheet folds down over the windows, revealing yet another Puerto Rican flag.

Hermanas Grocery Store

More than fifty volunteers helped paint the sidewalk murals in an effort to help slow down traffic at the intersection. They came together on July 31st 2021 to create the work, and finished in just one day. The funds for the project came from a grant by the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. Deka Henry has worked on other murals in Hartford, but is primarily a mosaic artist. His preferred medium clearly had influence in the design for this mural, with its angular, geometric shape and colorful palette.Check out the second half of this installation at the intersection of Capitol Avenue and Babcock Street.

These murals at the intersection of Capitol Avenue and Lawrence Street were created by Henry Deka, an artist based in Hartford. Unlike most of the other art on this tour, this unique piece is horizontal, and blends in well with the existing infrastructure, framing the sidewalk and incorporating the crosswalks.

Sidewalk Murals

Lindaluz Carillo: "She works with Hartford Prints as, I believe, their graphic designer and artist, so she does a lot of the designs in there. Hartford Prints is a local shop. They have a lot of merch that is either from local, or um, you know, businesses that are from Bridgeport, New Haven. They started off as a printmaking studio, essentially, and they would make cards and wedding invitations, and stuff like that. I think over time they just moved on to other things. ... I know this spot, they've been wanting to paint this for a while, and I believe that the person who is in collaboration with this is like CT Murals and maybe the owner of Red Rock. I don't know the full detail, but I know there was a conversation between both spaces. I don't know if they're going to turn this into anything any time soon. I hope so. It used to be a salsa club at one point."

Connecticut-based artist Jillian Goeler designed this mural that decorates the entire first floor of a vacant storefront. The organization CT Murals contracted her to create and paint the design. Goeler has created artwork for Queer Eye and Refinery29. She also works closely with Hartford Prints, which is a great place to support her work.

Your Kind of Place

Before Little River Restoratives took up this spot, it was home to a coffee shop and bookstore called La Paloma Sabanera. The coffee shop had its own mural in the same spot as the current one, but in a drastically different colorful and somewhat psychedelic style.Lindaluz Carillo: "So the artist Claire, she has done a lot of murals of, like, women with big eyes and, like, very elaborate details. So that's kind of just like, um, a more simplified version of her style. Of course, you know, often when artists work with businesses or like, a client, right? You know, their style is more modified, I guess I would say, in order to fit the aesthetic or the vibe. Sometimes you'll see that."

Local artist Claire Cronkhite created this mural in 2015 for Little River Restoratives. While mostly in keeping with Cronkhite's signature style, with exaggerated facial features and airbrushed shading, she incorporated some stylistic elements of the 1920s to match the "speakeasy" theme of the bar. Also check the front for another small mural!

Little River Restoratives and Co.

Lindaluz Carillo: "So Stella's African Eatery, it used to be one of the best food spots, I think. They had to go, well, they left because of the chef. She ended up traveling, so she's out traveling, making food, living - living the dreams. She's doing - she's doing great. But this food spot was it, like you would come in early only because, like, the food would be done by 2:00. If you came at 2:30, 3:00, that's it. You're out of luck. But, amazing food, amazing chef. And so, yeah, we just like, came over here, also through the Temple of Hip Hop, right, we wanted to do another mural. So we had Kayla Farrow paint this."

Kayla Farrow designed this mural with the help of Lindaluz Carillo. They worked together on the gradient background, Farrow painted the pattern of faces, and Carillo painted the text. The mural was painted only a year before the restaurant closed, but it is by no means a sad ending: the chef is now traveling the world sharing her culinary creations.

Stella's African Eatery

Lindaluz Carillo: "That was actually commissioned by the city. It was, like, for the 'Love Your Block' project. A lot of back and forth on that as far as what they wanted because it was part of a campaign for anti-littering. Yeah, it was an interesting project to say the least. What was helpful, it was a four day project. I had the opportunity to work with OPP, which is an organization that works with youth, so I had at least like, ten kids per each day each session, so they would get a lot of the space filled. I also made the mural very simple just because of the time, and just budgeting and everything, and all that. But yeah, it was cool, just to get them involved, get the kids... You know, get to know them a little bit more. That's always my favorite part when it comes to working on pieces. It's not really - it is the execution and the over all design, you know? But at the same time it's like, you know, creating this, this memory, and building this like, idea where you can really be an artist, you know, and that can be all. If you want to do, it's what you can do. And if you really try at it - there's different forms of it, muraling is just one."

The City of Hartford commissioned this mural as part of the "Love Your Block" program. Lindaluz Carillo designed the mural and worked with youth from the organization Our Piece of the Pie to create it. Over the course of four days, ten students per day would help paint the piece.

Public Art in Frog Hollow

The Art Box Lot

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources