BCYF Vine Street Interior Percent for Art Project
The public art project will complement the renovation of the Roxbury community center.
This project is currently in the fabrication phase.
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Project Details
Project Context
Through a $5.3 million investment, the BCYF Vine Street Community Center received several needed repairs and upgrades, including:
- renovating and reconfiguring all interior spaces
- adding a fitness center
- expanding the teen center and improving access to the center, and
- adding air conditioning to the gym, and much more.
This Percent for Art Project is the second of two projects connected to the Vine Street center. The budget is $9,999 for designs for permanent, two-dimensional artwork. The first call was for exterior artwork. Learn more about the exterior project.
Design Goals and Cultural Context
There are three qualities of the Vine Street BCYF and surrounding neighborhood that the artist may wish to take into consideration:
- Community: The purpose of Boston’s community centers is to enhance the quality of life for all Bostonians. Vine Street BCYF offers many programs and connections. It's a space where communities in the neighborhood can gather, play, and learn. The art should reflect this diversity of membership and programming.
- Multi-generational use: The Vine Street BCYF serves the entire Dudley Square area in Roxbury. Most people are familiar with their robust programs for teens and children. But, the center also has dedicated space for senior activities. Exercise and other common rooms attract users of all ages and abilities.
- Health and wellness: Many BCYF programs focus on active living for all ages. Dance, basketball, active play, and group exercise are all strong programs at this location. BCYF designs their programs in alignment with their ACES framework (Arts, Community and Civic Engagement, Education and Sports, Recreation and Fitness). The artwork should reflect or engage this existing culture of wellness and physical activity.
Project Site
The City explored several potential sites for the artwork and ultimately decided on the central hallway upper walls.
About the artist: Destiny Palmer
Destiny Palmer currently is working at Thayer Academy. Most recently, she was an Assistant Professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Palmer is trained as a painter but her work explores the intersections of painting, history, and color. This allows her work to blur the lines of painting, sculpture, and installation. Palmer has participated in exhibitions at:
- Antenna Gallery
- The Colored Girls Museum
- Automat Collective
- Ely Center for the Arts
- Vandermoot Gallery, and
- Landmark College.
Palmer has hosted workshops at The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts. Most recently, Palmer was invited to speak on her relationship to Hans Hofmann at the Peabody Essex Museum.
Palmer explores and investigates what it means to be an artist, educator, and advocate for the arts. She has worked with various communities to create public art projects. These range from traditional murals to community-engaged murals to digitally created murals. Palmer has worked with MIT, Lifewtr, Saxby’s and Mural Arts Philadelphia. Some of her murals can be found at the Gallivan Community Center in Mattapan, Kendall Square Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Navy Yard in Philadelphia. Creating art in public realms has been a focus for Destiny. Palmer received her Master’s of Fine Arts in Painting from Tyler School of Art at Temple University, and Bachelors in Fine Art in Painting at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Destiny was co-founder of Traditions Remixed. The artist collective's goal is to create a supportive community for young artists, especially artists of color, encouraging collaboration and networking.
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