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Date: 11/16/2021
NORTHAMPTON – Local Western Massachusetts artist Dean McKeever – also known as Keever – created a lifelike mural on the side wall of A2Z Science & Learning Toy Store located at 57 King St. in Northampton. The mural was created over a span of five days.
McKeever met the owners of A2Z Science, André and Devon Boulay, through a mutual friend and supporter that all three of them knew. Their friend also was very much into the craft beer scene, and McKeever is also known for creating craft labels for breweries all over the area. While hanging out with the Boulays, McKeever’s friend and supporter referred McKeever’s work to them after the owners said that they always wanted a mural on the outside wall of their property.
“It was kind of like traditional word-of-mouth,” said McKeever. “He saw my work and showed it to the owners of A2Z, and we went from there.”
The owners wanted to ask McKeever if he could paint the mural after seeing some “amazing” dinosaurs he drew during the summer of 2021. “Upon looking up Dean further, we discovered that his art was a better match for our store than we could ever have imagined and knew we found the artist that could pull off our vision,” said the Boulays in a statement to Reminder Publishing.
According to McKeever, the owners wanted something fun and playful to reflect what they offer at the store, which includes a lot of toys and learning activities for children. McKeever said he did not want the mural to be too cartoony, but rather family-friendly so people of all ages could enjoy it. Since purchasing the store in 2015, the owners felt that the side of their building was a “beautiful” canvas and found that downtown Northampton was the perfect place for art and family.
“Starting with rough sketches and colors Dean quickly took our ideas and concept and created something that?we felt balanced the focus of a science and learning theme while keeping it chock full of imagination, curiosity, and the love for?our Northampton community,” read the Boulays’ statement.
After spitballing a few ideas, the owners and McKeever decided on picking a few of their favorite animals. The end product includes a vibrant mix of animals in space, along with a rocket ship that emits the LGBTQ+ flag, which was a suggestion made by Devon because Northampton has a very proud LGBTQ+ community.
According to a McKeever Facebook post, the mural is dedicated to his daughter Rowan – whose name is featured on the wall. McKeever said that this mural was extra significant for him because he grew up going to Northampton, and the city itself holds a special place in his heart.
McKeever began the mural-making process by composing it digitally to separate each element and character and used a projector at night to project the entire design on the store wall. He then did very light scraping so he could determine where each character would live on the canvas.
“I wanted to leave a lot of the brick showing since it’s a historic brick from the early 1930s,” said McKeever. “I’m big into preserving stuff like that. I didn’t want to completely blast one background color on the brick.” He then used a white color as a base color, thus allowing the spray-painted colors to pop even more.
“It’s really a challenge to make it look like my style because – not only am I using spray paint versus what I normally use on paper – but it’s tough to do the same techniques at that scale,” said McKeever when describing the mural experience. “Murals for me are so fulfilling because they’re so big and so out there, and they enhance the businesses that they live in.”
The owners similarly felt fulfilled about the mural and added that McKeever was a true “professional and friend” throughout the entire process. “It was also kind of a neat full circle experience as Dean used to park cars as a valet for the Hotel Northampton across the street and at the time dreamed of doing art of this scale,” read the Boulays’ statement. “So, in some ways it was a realization of his journey, he said.”