You probably know the Green Monster, the iconic left field wall at Fenway Park in Boston. Some people travel from all over the world to see it in person. Others love it so much they want a replica of it in their home. Painter M-C Lamarre has built a whole career around making that latter dream a reality.
“Have brushes, will travel” is the Oak Bluffs–based artist’s slogan. Over the past fifteen years she’s painted some 208 murals of the Green Monster in homes, restaurants, and commercial spaces. “They are in twenty-four states and three are in Canada,” she said. Three of them call the Vineyard home.
Lamarre got her start in the Green Monster mural game when she painted her nephew’s room to look like Fenway in May of 2004. Five months later the Sox broke their eighty-six-year drought to win the World Series. It was a good time to be a Red Sox fan – and, as it turns out, a Red Sox–obsessed artist. A few years later she was featured in the Boston Globe’s Globe Magazine. From there her career took off.
“Some people look at [the mural] very quickly and they think they are just looking at a Green Monster,” she said, “where in fact it has quite a bit of content that is customized to make it personal for the client.”
She painted one version for a couple who became engaged at Fenway; in it, the scoreboard is stopped at the time the proposal happened. Other versions feature birthdates in place of scores. Others are created as a tribute to past family members. She has even painted one for a former New York Yankees player, who shall remain unnamed.
Despite each mural’s unique details, Lamarre said the process is always the same. “Fifteen years in, I know what I’m doing. Generally, because it is so geometric in a way, or mathematical, I don’t necessarily need to do a site visit.” The clients send her pictures and measurements of the space so that she can make a rough template before travelling to their home to paint. “I insist on being proportionally correct,” she said.
Lamarre also makes smaller, portable versions of the murals, which come in handy for younger fans of her work.
“When they grow up, they can take that with them,” she explained. “Because when you are a Sox fan, you are a Sox fan for life.”
