Artist helps transform blight to beauty throughout Baltimore area 

Seated on a large rolling cooler along a blighted stretch of Howard Street, a 67-year-old woman with neon-blue hair carefully dabbed her brush into black paint on a crisp Saturday morning in November. 

As the clang of passing light-rail trains filled the air, Erin Meye concentrated on touching up a large mural she had completed a few weeks earlier outside Options@328, a pro-life pregnancy resource center in Baltimore that shares a wall with Planned Parenthood. 

The vivid mural – majestic butterfly wings unfurled across a metal security screen – transforms what had once been a magnet for graffiti into a splash of color and hope. 

“How will you know you can fly if you never spread your wings,” a printed message proclaims from within a mural that includes images of Fort McHenry, the Natty Boh man, the Washington Monument and the Bromo Selzer Tower. 

For Meye, a parishioner of Church of the Nativity in Timonium, the mural is more than decoration. It’s a statement of renewal. She’s brought that same message to other projects, including art along Main Street in Reisterstown and the Poppleton Recreation Center in Baltimore, a community outreach supported by her parish. 

“I grew up in the city,” Meye said. “I went to Seton High School and I used to live in West Baltimore. A lot of the places I see now look like they’re bombed-out war zones compared to what they used to look like. I encourage any art that could be done to stand out.” 

The blight, she points out, isn’t new. Much of it dates to earlier generations. But today’s young people inherit the decay without memory of what came before. 

“The ones who are growing up around it don’t ­really have anything to appreciate,” she said. “So unless you give them something to appreciate and be proud of, they don’t feel that. They’re the ones who will go out and write on buildings. I think all those neighborhoods deserve to be seen in a new light because there’s a new generation coming in.” 

Spending money to erase graffiti, she argued, often misses the point.  

“The more you try to clean it and make it fresh, the more you are offering a canvas for people to create graffiti,” she said. 

Instead, she envisions a more collaborative approach. Meye suggested that young people be given permission to take cans of colored paint to fill in the lines of existing graffiti so that it’s transformed into art. 

“It becomes part of the design of the building,” she said. “They could write their names in it.” 

Meye, who completed an associate degree in graphic design at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, has been involved in several projects in private homes. She’s also known for painting Maryland scenes on crab shells, some of which end up as cherished Christmas ornaments. 

Faith drives her work. As an extraordinary minister of holy Communion, volunteer at Church of the Nativity and art teacher for preschool children through the Knights of Columbus, Meye sees her murals as an extension of her ministry – a way to serve communities in need of renewal. 

Still, she admitted she was nervous when first asked to paint the pregnancy center mural. The location has a reputation. Two years ago, two elderly men were assaulted outside the center while holding a pro-life vigil. 

“For all my worrying and fretting, not a single bad thing happened,” said Meye, who uses her rolling cooler to store her paint.  

Gina Ruppert knows the challenge. As executive director of the Center for Pregnancy Concerns that operates Options@328, the parishioner of Sacred Heart in Glyndon has watched the building battle graffiti since it opened five years ago. Within six months, taggers had struck. The non-denominational Christian ministry, which is supported by the Archdiocese of Baltimore, successfully applied to the city’s graffiti removal program to clean the exterior – a process that took nearly two years. But before long, the tags returned. 

Ruppert and Meye agreed that murals tend to deter vandals since graffiti artists are less likely to target a wall already covered in meaningful art. 

Today, people stop to take selfies in front of the butterfly wings, Ruppert said. The mural complements other public art in the Bromo Arts District. 

“We wanted to really honor the community, honor the arts district and have a positive, beautiful and inspiring message that everyone could identify with,” Ruppert said, noting that the project was three years in the making and was funded by an anonymous donor.  

After Meye finished her touch-up work in November, she looked at her mural with a sense of satisfaction. She’ll be back if it needs touching up again – or if graffiti returns.  

Email George Matysek at gmatysek@CatholicReview.org 

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