His first mural was for a friend in high school.
Then, he got a job painting a mural for a jewelry company.
Pretty soon, Joe Brown was making a career of the talent he’d had from a young age. By the 1980s, things really took off, often being booked two and three years in advance.
Sifting through his body of work, you wouldn’t know the now 68-year-old Marlborough resident failed art classes all throughout his life, from high school to college.
“Everybody told me I was going to fail,” Brown said. “My parents were not really advocates of art, my teachers all flunked me,” he said. “I never had a cheerleader.”
And yet, Brown — who now works as a full-time driver for the Beech Street Center — has had clients that include Oprah Winfrey, Cate Blanchett and Vanilla Ice, to name a few. His work has been featured at major hotels, law firms and art galleries.
“What else was I going to do?” Brown said, recalling his career as a fine artist, a body of work that includes murals and portraits.
On a recent Wednesday morning, Brown put some of the finishing touches on his most recent piece: a 17-by-10-foot mural on the stage at the Beech Street Center. With precision, he outlined the shape of a butterfly, fluttering between the ornate floral borders Brown had already created.
“It took a while to figure out what the mural was going to be,” said Community Services Director Brandon Fitts. “We had a lot of iterations of it. The flowers … have just worked out so well. Every time you look at it, you find something new within it.”
Brown said he drew inspiration from the Dutch painter Rachel Ruysch, who specialized in florals during the 17th and 18th centuries.
“I’ve always liked her stuff,” Brown said. “It gave me impetus to really want to do the floral piece. I could see we could take some of those things, blow it up, and it would be really impressive.”
According to Fitts, Brown developed a reputation for painting cards for members of the Beech Street community, whether they were celebrating a birthday, feeling unwell, or deserving of a special thank-you note.
“It got me thinking, we have to find a way to have Joe do something here at the center,” Fitts said. “What’s tricky is Joe is our full-time Belder Bus driver and assists the seniors in so many wonderful ways.”
Then, the library moved in, and the logistics got even harder.
But now, with the library transitioning out, Fitts saw an opportunity to work with Brown. He received approval from the Council on Aging and the Facilities Department to have a mural done on the stage in the multipurpose room of the center.
“Joe has taken a few days off here and there but largely has been working full time while doing this,” Fitts said. “He’s been getting here at like 3:30 in the morning and painting before the day starts, and that’s how most of it has gotten done.”
The timing of the project turned out to be perfect, according to Fitts.
“The idea was to bring some vibrancy and life into the center,” he said. “The stage was home to some bookshelves over the past two years and as the library started to move out, we wanted to do something to liven up the place.”
And so far, even as the project was underway, it accomplished just that.
“Every time the light changes in the room, the whole thing changes,” said Assistant Director Heidi Barberio. “It’s gorgeous.”
