A new mural at Detroit’s Dossin Great Lakes Museum began with one artist’s design and grew through a summer of shared work. ‘Currents in Color,’ created by Detroit multidisciplinary designer Brontae Williamson, was unveiled on Sept. 23 on the museum’s west-facing wall. The finished piece measures 32 feet across and 8 feet high, assembled from sixteen square panels. Volunteers and museum visitors helped paint those panels before the artwork was installed on Belle Isle.
A design shaped by many hands
The project started with an open call for original mural designs. The Detroit Historical Society announced the call on April 20 and set June 1 as the submission deadline. A six-person committee selected Williamson’s proposal, announced June 27. Its members brought experience from Detroit’s art and design community, the Dossin museum and the Historical Society. A gift from Lisa Capra helped make the project possible, according to the Society’s project record.
Williamson’s design shows two people paddling a kayak along a bright river, surrounded by flowers, birds and buildings in the distance. The Society says the project was intended to showcase Detroit artists while honoring maritime history and the region’s identity. Williamson studied product design at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. Williamson said the design reflects the diversity of the city’s people and natural world, along with residents’ affection for Detroit’s beauty.
The project turned the design into a group effort. During community painting sessions over the summer, participants filled in sections of the sixteen four-foot-square panels using a paint-by-number process. The panels were later assembled and installed on the museum wall. WDIV reported that local artists, museum stakeholders and community members gathered for the Sept. 23 unveiling. The museum describes the finished piece as a lasting addition to its west-facing exterior.
A Detroit idea returns to the city
Paint-by-number gave the group a practical way to contribute to a large artwork, and the method itself has roots in Metro Detroit. The Detroit Historical Society’s Encyclopedia of Detroit credits artist Dan Robbins with developing the paint-by-number idea while he worked with Max Klein, president of Detroit’s Palmer Paint Company. Robbins came up with the concept in 1949; the company introduced its first Craft Master kits in 1951.
Robbins was born in Detroit in 1925 and attended Cass Technical High School, the Society’s account says. After serving in the Army, he made washable paint sets for children. Klein wanted to increase demand for Palmer’s paint, and Robbins’ numbered patterns helped turn painting into an activity people could follow at home. By 1954, the company had sold twelve million kits. A technique with that local history now appears in a public work made through another shared process: neighbors and museum visitors painting alongside one another.
That connection is visible without a long explanation. The mural’s panels were completed by people taking part in the museum’s sessions, then joined into one image on the Dossin’s west-facing wall. Each person worked on a section; the installation made those contributions part of a single scene. The Historical Society’s project brief ties the artwork to the region’s maritime story, while the kayak and river in Williamson’s design carry that theme into the present.
A wall the community helped make
Dossin Great Lakes Museum sits on Belle Isle and tells stories about the lakes, shipping and the people connected to them. The mural project gave visitors another way to take part in that setting: they could add color to a panel, return to the museum and see the combined result installed outside. Tracy Irwin, the Historical Society’s chief exhibition and enrichment officer, told WDIV she hoped participants might someday tell their grandchildren they helped make the mural.
‘Currents in Color’ links a contemporary Detroit artist, a local museum and a familiar creative method with a public gathering place. Its scale makes it easy to notice from outside; its process is what makes the project especially communal. The image is Williamson’s, but the weeks of painting gave museum visitors and volunteers a part in bringing it to the wall. The unveiling marked the finish of that work and the start of a new piece of public art on Belle Isle.
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