THE MANTIS MURAL

1991
JANET BRAUN-REINITZ

Carlton Avenue between Greene & Fulton Avenues, Brooklyn, NY
30’ x 38’, acrylic on brick, concrete and tar
with Brooklyn Bear’s Carlton Avenue Community Garden, Trust for Public Land, GreenThumb

Photos © Janet Braun-Reinitz and Jon Crow

In 1991, the Brooklyn Bear’s community gardeners were temporarily displaced from their flagship garden on Flatbush Avenue due to adjacent construction on the shared triangular site. GreenThumb, NYC’s community gardening program, secured permission for a new garden on Carlton Avenue – on land protected from development. The new site may have been only a few blocks away, but it was in a different neighborhood. Thus, the gardeners hoped that a community mural would not only integrate the garden into its new surroundings, but that the Bear’s would also attract new members.

With funding from the Trust for Public Land, the gardeners commissioned Janet to design the mural and spent days helping her paint. A giant praying mantis rendered in shimmering iridescent greens and gold covers the street-end half of the wall, atop bright red tomatoes and golden yellow peppers. From the start, both artist and gardeners dreamed of extending the mural and, a few years later, they spent one long weekend adding a few giant eggplants to the stew.  

In 1996, the organizers of the New York Flower Show invited the Brooklyn Bear’s to represent NYC’s community gardens, and the gardeners asked Janet to create a smaller Mantis Mural (12’ x 24’, acrylic on wood) as a backdrop for their installation. Filled with spring flowering shrubs and bulbs, their garden was awarded a First Place in Landscape Design and a Certificate of Merit from the American Horticulture Society. 

At the close of the show, Janet weatherized the mural and, now known as Mantis Too, gifted it to the 615 Community Garden on Sixth Avenue at 15th Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn.