If you have ever been in Mr. Justice’s art classroom, you may have noticed that the ceiling is lined with painted tiles, done by LS students. But why? What’s the story behind them?
First, why does he have the tiles? When Mr. Justice was a teenager, there was a store in Egleston Square, near Roxbury, called Skippy White’s Records, their slogan was “‘hum the tune, and we’ll find the album.’ This meant that even if you cannot remember the name of the album, hum the tune.” The store was filled with album covers. Unfortunately, the store went out of business 10 years ago. After the record store closed down, Mr. Justice recalls looking at the ceiling tiles in BEACON (an LS program) and in Mr. Wentworth’s classroom. “I just thought, I wanted to reproduce every album that’s compelling, interesting, in history. Because I always looked at album covers growing up,” and it is not just the music, but also the covers, “are the selling point,” Mr. Justice explained.
But how can you create a title? Mr. Justice explains, “Come in during ACA, during a free block, you can work on it after school. My only request is that you paint something that you know you can paint, because it’s going to stay up there forever. Do something that you’re comfortable doing. There’s a million album covers out there, where there’s no people in it, and a lot of the time people are the sticking point.” He notes that many of the students who paint a tile aren’t in his class. He will also allow you to trace an image on the projector. A lot of people say that it’s cheating, but Mr. Justice does not believe it is: “There’s no such thing as art cops!” He also mentioned how people use projectors to create murals, “People have been doing it for several hundred years.”
Mr. Justice’s advice to students who want to make a tile is to “take your time, you’ve got until your senior year to finish it.” He also recommends: “don’t do one with a person on it if you can’t draw people, because that’s what gets hard.” Yes, you can use the projector, but Mr. Justice “would rather you paint something that you’re comfortable with.” He also says that he doesn’t want his students to “choose an album cover they listen to” since there are countless amazing album covers out there, such as blues albums from the 40s and 50s. Lastly, he said “if you can’t think of one, ask your parents.” Because most likely, your parents grew up when Mr. Justice grew up, which was when albums were popular, so they probably know some really good album covers.
Mr. Justice believes the reason students enjoy making these tiles is because they “make their mark on the school. As a collective, it’s all a mural. That’s what all of this is, it’s music. It’s a celebration of different eras of music, of different genres of music, different time periods of music, but it’s a mural. You get to mess with color, get the enjoyment of what you’re creating, recreating.”
“There’s only about 60 [open tiles] left. Once it’s finished, I’m retiring,” Mr. Justice says.
