Still Running: an Art Marathon for Boston

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CFA student offers Marathon bombing survivors, responders healing through art

In the sad, surreal days following last April’s deadly Boston Marathon bombings, hundreds of citizens offered their skills to help the injured and the first responders and to boost the morale of a city in shock. Taylor Mortell wanted to do her part—but as an artist, what could she offer?

Although Mortell (CFA’16) did not know the victims, she had personally endured the process of healing from a traumatic injury. When she was 15, a speeding volleyball slammed the back of her head, inflicting a concussion that grounded her for many months. “I couldn’t take part in normal life,” she says. “I couldn’t go to school, listen to music, or even watch TV.” During that time, she realized all the things she’d been taking for granted, and she “began to think about what I really wanted to do. Making art was at the front of my mind. I was motivated to go into arts and healing, and I hope eventually to study art therapy.” Mortell’s body of work includes uncontrived, almost contemplative oil portraits in earthy palettes.

As the events of those dark April days weighed on her, Mortell discussed her urge to help with her classmates and with teacher Richard Raiselis, a College of Fine Arts associate professor of art. After the discussion Mortell and graduate teaching assistant Luca de Gaetano (CFA’13) drifted out of class together. De Gaetano identified with Mortell’s impulse to do something proactive. “I thought about how such a nonsensical action could be so powerful, destroying so suddenly the happiness of an entire community,” says de Gaetano, an abstract painter whose canvases draw on the human form in evocative, mythic incarnations. “Being passionate about my work—which is to make art—and finding myself surrounded by my peers when learning about what happened awoke an urgent need to respond visually and positively to the tragedy.”

Mortell and de Gaetano began to talk about what they could do to benefit the victims and help the city heal. As artists who could convey their feelings through painting, they reasoned, they could exhibit their work and the work of fellow artists to the benefit of the victims. Or they could provide the space and art materials for others to give voice to the otherwise inexpressible. They decided to start a project that would encompass both objectives and founded Still Running: An Art Marathon for Boston.

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