The Dartmouth Mall makes waves while paying tribute to the sea

The large whale tail at the front entrance and the waves out back cement Dartmouth Mall’s connection to the sea.

Local artist Roxanne Blackmore, who works out of a studio at 28 Anawan St. in Fall River, recently completed her second of two large murals on the walls of the Dartmouth Mall, and she had help from her family.

Blackmore’s 15-year-old daughter, Arden, and her 6-year-old son, Shepherd, along with the artist’s father, Rene Gagnon, contributed to the painting of the murals.

When she needed just a little reassurance that the ladder wasn’t going to fall while painting the 43-foot-long by 10-foot-high whale tail near Five Below, Arden provided that for her, and in return got to go shopping, have lunch and buy a hat in the mall.

Shepherd worked on the first 42-foot-long by 7-foot-high mural of a massive wave near the AMC Theaters by adding a couple of strokes to a part of it. His contribution was captured on camera with a post on her Instagram page at rox_b_art.

Gagnon, who she said is a retired house painter, gave her feedback on how to approach creating the second mural and went to the paint store for her. She used to help him with his painting jobs.

“That experience came in handy,” she said. “That was nice to have him involved in that, too.”

Her first murals are sizeable

Dartmouth Mall Marketing Director Beth Zager said they had to smooth out both the walls that Blakemore painted because the first wall was cinder block and the second wall had decals on it.

“We are in the process of painting the entire mall a new color, so we wanted to add some local flare to the big blank walls instead of having it just be basic color,” she said.

Zager said General Manager Mike Alfonso went to school with Blackmore and knew of her, and her work fit their aesthetic and matched perfectly as shown on her website with its ocean themes. Nautical maps and compasses inside the mall follow the same theme.

These are her first two murals ever, and she was happy to accept the challenge.

“They asked me, and I said why not,” she said.

After mall management chose the designs they liked the best, Blackmore shared what she felt comfortable painting and management picked out their favorites.

Painting the first mural with the waves was different than she was used to because she had to use a different type of paint, so she went to Home Depot to get matched with all the right paints for her palette and had to get new tools due to the height of the mural.

As for the whale mural, since the mall couldn’t use its normal lift to get close enough to the wall so that Blackmore could paint above the shrubs in front of it, she had to use a ladder for most of it.

There will be more to come

The mall has already arranged to have Blackmore paint two more murals with the ocean theme next year with the ultimate goal of covering all the blank walls to add even more ocean scenes.

Blackmore said it wasn’t always comfortable recreating her design on the high wall but said it was worth it. Next time the mall will get a boom lift like they use to decorate the 20-foot-tall Christmas tree during the holidays to make it more comfortable for her.

She knew she wanted to be an artist from an early age, and for the past five years has been selling her work. She decided to pursue her lifelong passion for art as a career after Shepherd was born and she had a lot of free time on her hands.

The family had moved into a new house, and the self-taught artist wanted to decorate with her own paintings, and her friends and family took notice.

“It just snowballed from there and I started doing shows and festivals and ended up opening my own studio space,” she said. “Over time things just started happening.”

She said she looks forward to returning to the mall next year to paint more murals connected with the sea.

Standard-Times staff writer Kathryn Gallerani can be reached at kgallerani@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @kgallreporter. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Standard-Times today.

This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: Self-taught artist Roxanne Blackmore showcases her first murals