Steve Locke’s “Three Deliberate Grays for Freddie (A Memorial for Freddie Gray)”  at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum,  June 26, 2018–January 21, 2019 

This is my temporary post, mainly to let people in the Boston area know that Steve Locke’s temporary art will be gone from the Gardner’s front facade after January 21, 2019. If you can pause in its presence before entering the museum and again after leaving, you can sense its strength as a memorial. Yet if you miss that opportunity, you can gather strength from the stories of how the memorial came to be.

Here are three quotes, one from each of three key resources about Steve Locke’s “Three Deliberate Grays for Freddie.“

“Outside the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a massive vertical triptych with three distinct monochromes hangs from the front facade of the building — an abstract memorial that serves as a place to weep, to remember and to honor Freddie Gray.” quote from report by Maria Garcia for The Artery, June 28, 2018

“THREE DELIBERATE GRAYS is a public site for mourning and healing of the trauma of the murder of Freddie Gray-a murder that happened in Baltimore, but also happened in the homes of every American.” quote from Steve Locke’s website, press release about “Three Deliberate Grays for Freddie (A Memorial for Freddie Gray)”

“Locke generated three distinct monochromes by averaging the pixels of three individual photos of Gray that were frequently used in the media. One is a family photo, one is from his arrest, and one is an image of Gray in the hospital on life support. The resulting colors form a timeline of the life, suffering, and death of Freddie Gray.” quote from information about the art and artist on Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum website 

Key Resources

Background and many photos of process and events for “Three Deliberate Grays for Freddie (A Memorial for Freddie Gray)” on Steve Locke’s website

Outside the Gardner, A Place to Mourn Freddie Gray through Color, article and audio by Maria Garcia for The Artery, WBUR, June 28, 2018

Steve Locke, “Three Deliberate Grays for Freddie (A Memorial for Freddie Gray)” About the art and artist, with a valuable video about Locke’s process on the Isabella Stewart Gardner website

I plan to post again next month about this art in connection with other memorials.