Graffiti and Hard Conversations: How Paul Morse Is Making Social Change His Life’s Work
Paul Morse is a burly truck driver in his early fifties. He loves weightlifting. He loves graffiti even more – he’s left his mark all over Rhode Island and beyond. He’s also on a mission to help change the world…
It seems a surprising combination at first. That is, until you set aside the snap judgements that we’re all prone to make and take just a moment to get to know him – the whole person as he truly is rather than a set of assumptions based on a few superficial facts.
Then, it’s not surprising at all. It’s simply inspiring.
It’s that very process of setting aside stereotypes and snap judgements in favor of mutual respect and real conversations that Paul, an Air Force veteran and son of a former Providence College professor, has been working to encourage in others for years.
When he finishes his degree in Social Science at Providence College School of Continuing Education – all while working full time and raising his five-year-old granddaughter on his own – he plans to officially make social change his life’s work.
But in the meantime, Paul is already helping to make change happen right now, through the creation of graffiti masterpieces that move people, and community events that bring them together.
A four-time invitee to the Graffiti Hall of Fame event in New York City, Paul’s work has been covered by media in his home state of Rhode Island and around the country. It’s a passion he’s had since elementary school, when his third-grade teacher Mrs. Ruth Gaboury (whom he still keeps in touch with) praised his artwork and encouraged him to keep it up.
“She was the first person who encouraged me besides my mom and dad,” he recalls. “It made me feel that my art made me special. Plus, it made her happy, so it made me happy, and I just fell in love with it. By the time I got to sixth or seventh grade I was into rap, hip hop and breakdancing. I saw the movie Beat Street, where the kid was painting on trains, and that’s when I got my first can of spray paint.”
“I painted something on the school, which got me in pretty big trouble. But I just kept going with it, although only that one time on a building without permission,” he says, laughing. “Art is a great form of communication. A good piece of artwork should help people start a dialogue. When people see my work I want them to feel something – positive or negative – and get a conversation started.”
In June, 2020, he started some important conversations when he turned boarded-up windows into canvases for a cause after Black Lives Matter protests in Providence.
When the protests led to incidents of looting and property destruction in the city, Paul and other graffiti artists came together to turn the boarded-up shop windows into graffiti works of art. The pieces were intended to inspire peaceful reflection and thoughtful discussion around the racial tension and social issues that sparked the initial protests, while condemning the violence that followed.
“I was raised by my parents to treat people the way I want to be treated,” Paul says. “The last thing I would want is to be punched or to have my property destroyed. We were trying to start a dialogue to help people realize that we’re all in the same game, so all the violence, all the hate and anger is ridiculous, it’s senseless. Why do you hate me just because I look different? Do your thing, I’m not bothering you. Live and let live, because we’re all the same inside, no one’s better than anyone.”
Five years before the events that prompted the Black Lives Matter movement, upset at the increasing disunity he observed between residents and police in his community, Paul organized #BeTheChange, a movement to encourage mutual respect and open conversation.
“I have a lot of good friends who are police officers, so it really bothered me that people would hate them just because of what they do for work. I wanted to do something to show that not all police are bad, to bridge the gap between them and the community,” Paul says.
“So I started #BeTheChange, a 30-day challenge where each day I would do something to give back and spread positivity between police officers and the community, and post it on social media. On the first day I brought twenty or thirty pizzas and soda to the East Providence police department, just to say thank you for their service. It ended up getting a pretty big following in my area, something like 5,000 followers on Facebook.”
Paul says his #BeTheChange movement led to his involvement in many other community events since then, including a rally in East Providence last year that brought together police, community members and local government officials. He’s visited local schools and talked with the kids about consequences of decisions, both good and bad.
Most recently, he’s taken to painting inspiring and fun murals on the wall of his neighbor’s garage (with permission, of course) to bring a smile to kids at a nearby school who walk by his house for required “mask breaks” during the pandemic.
Inspiring smiles in children, encouraging them to have those hard but important conversations, and who knows – maybe even teach them a little artistic graffiti – is his ultimate goal as he works hard to finish his degree.
“I’m working toward by bachelor’s degree in Social Science with a concentration in leadership and diversity, just taking a course or two at a time. In the next four or five years I want to go into counseling for young adults and also do more mentoring work with kids. I hope to reach them with artwork, the same way art really reached something in me, and maybe they can relate to me that way,” Paul says.
“I want to show them there’s a better way than so much of what we’re seeing out in the world today, so they can understand the world more, make better decisions while growing up and make the most of their lives.”
