Brockton artist explores creativity — and tells a story — in her first community mural

BROCKTON — While sitting under a plum blossom tree overlooking the mountainous terrain of China, Jessica Picanzo discovered her true passion of becoming an artist.

As the wind blew and the tree leaves rustled, her number two pencil gently glided over a sketchbook.

Picanzo thought to herself, “This is my calling.”

The 22-year-old took a sabbatical to teach Chinese children English and discovered a new hobby of drawing while there.

“Creating art became an outlet for me to feel at home and express myself but also take myself away from stressful situations and let some feelings out. I was always into art as a kid, but it wasn’t until I lived in China and made that strong connection,” Picanzo said.

Once the Brockton resident returned to America, she knew it was time to take her art more seriously and decided to enroll in Massasoit Community college and study fine arts. Picanzo has two semesters left until graduation.

The turning point of the artist’s career came when her friend suggested she create an art piece for the Brockton Community Access center.

Picanzo didn’t have much experience painting on such a large scale, but she was up to the challenge.

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This project gave the Brockton High School alum confidence to explore bigger possibilities regarding large art pieces.

“I did a lot of my research from Google and YouTube and just went out and did it,” Picanzo said.

Once Picanzo conducted all the needed research and inquired about the supplies, it was time to give a bland wall a facelift.

“I started by scraping and prepping the wall to give it a smooth finish. I then primed it with two coats of white paint to give me a nice clean background, and then I started measuring and leveling things which pretty much took the whole day,” Picanzo said.

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The process was tedious but necessary to preserve the art, Picanzo said.

Once the sketches were aligned, the artist began painting the skyline, the ocean, people and other details.

The Make A Difference mural outside of BCA symbolizes how one person can make a difference no matter how small it may seem, Picanzo said.

The mural is based on a story of a little boy throwing starfish that washed up on shore back into the ocean.

An older man passing by told the boy there are thousands of starfish in the ocean and that he won’t make a difference in their lives doing that.

The boy showed the man that even though it’s one starfish out of thousands in the ocean, the little boy made a difference, and that’s all that matters.

This story resonates with the artist simply because making one small change or inspiring one person is all you need, she said.

“Sometimes, when I’m creating art, people come up to me and say how much I inspired them. So if I can inspire one person with my creativity, then I’m doing my job,” Picanzo said.

Picanzo has a few mural projects lined up and hopes to keep inspiring the youth and new artists worldwide.

As an artist who found herself in her early 20s, she suggests people go out and be as creative and unique as they can while also being inspired by the world and people around them.

“At 22 years old, I never thought I would be creating a mural. It’s a dream to create a mural in your hometown. It’s such a huge accomplishment that came sooner than I thought,” Picanzo said.

Enterprise staff reporter Alisha Saint-Ciel can be reached by email at stciela@gannett.com. You can follow her on Twitter at @alishaspeakss and Instagram at Alishaatv. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Enterprise today.

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Brockton mural: Artist Jessica Picanzo paints 'Make a Difference'