For the last few years, Juniper Creative has been painting colorful murals across Vermont buildings.
The Black and Dominican family art collective — based in Brandon — is all about community. They often invite folks to help plan and even paint parts of their murals. The collective includes dad Will Kasso Condry, mom Jennifer Herrera Condry, and daughter Alexa Herrera Condry.
Their latest community-based mural is going up inside of the Greater Burlington YMCA. It will feature a kid on a dragon flying through a portal to safety.
Vermont Public’s Marlon Hyde recently stopped by and spoke with Juniper Creative about their murals and its impacts on Vermont culture. Their conversation below has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Marlon Hyde: Ya'll are literally taking the community's voices, then ya'll are taking the community's hands and putting pieces of art within their grasp ... Literally, what's going on behind us, you know, here's a paintbrush, here's some paint, here, paint a piece and we'll drop it into the mural, and we'll make the art even around it, or we'll incorporate it in somehow. Where did that come from? And why do you feel so passionately about making that a mainstay of how ya'll operate?
Jennifer Herrera Condry: When Will [Kasso Condry] says, "including everyone's voice," it isn't just that their voice is helping us come up with a design. It's them showing up here, meeting each other, having conversations like just behind you. None of these people knew each other. Right? Now they're sitting here, they're in conversation, they're painting together, they're sharing paint resources, paint supplies, and they're having a good time.
Normally, we'd have music playing, right, but we're having a conversation, so we had to turn the music off. But, you know, that's how people are sharing their voices, because they're painting and bringing themselves into their little piece of artwork that becomes part of the collective whole. The whole composition. And it's integrated in a way that most people think they painted it directly on the wall.
Last year, you were honored with the Vermont Prize. But what did it mean to you to be honored in a state that you're not a native of, but you've definitely made a mark on?
Will Kasso Condry: I don't even know, you know, the words other than, I just — just feels really good to be recognized for that side of what I do. You know, because that's something that I, like, very few people knew that I produce work at that level, you know, and because we've always made — put our time more into building others up, and it felt good to see it come back. Yeah. But like, I tell Jennifer, that win was a win for all of us, because even the illustrations, you know, it was built around very personal stories, you know, and Alexa and Jennifer was the muse for many of those.
"We're putting these murals up in a way, they're designed to live for generations. The materials, the style, and the techniques that we've pioneered are meant for them to be around just as long and impactful as anything we've seen in museums and history books, and telling it — telling a very contemporary story about our culture."Will Kasso Condry, Juniper Creative
How does this bring your family closer together? Because I know when ya'll working with any human being on the face of the earth, there's going to be a conflict, but when you’re a family, those conflicts tend to rear their heads in different ways.
You know, we had to get used to working with each other all the time, where prior to the pandemic, you know, Jennifer would — Jennifer and I will go and do these residencies and projects. But you're talking about maybe something that was only happening maybe once, twice a year. But once we started really like, "OK, this is the move," because we love the way it is, for one, the way it makes us feel, what we're able to offer to these communities, you know, the stories we hear after we're gone, about how much things have changed for the better, we need to see that, for real. We need to almost turn Vermont into like a visual, cultural garden. Right?
What's the next step?
You know, we've been very prolific, you know, and that was by design. You know, we've always been ambitious in our pursuits, you know. And coming out of the graffiti and street art movement, you know, we're first-generation hip-hop, right? So all that seeps into what we do.
And we have some ideas about Burlington, that we are very confident that can work, that can change the narrative of the way the walls look in this town. Right? Because there's a big conversation around the graffiti, and you're dealing with a culture that was created by youth. You can't solve a problem like this and leave young people out of it, right?
Can you speak to — what's the power of public art in enshrining Black and brown stories?
We're putting these murals up in a way, they're designed to live for generations. The materials, the style, and the techniques that we've pioneered are meant for them to be around just as long and impactful as anything we've seen in museums and history books, and telling it — telling a very contemporary story about our culture.
So are you telling me that this is your version of hieroglyphics, right?
That's right. We’re going to turn Vermont into ancient Kemet.
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