Miles Balfour explains his inspiration for his community mural
Columbus artist Miles Balfour created a community mural on West Broad Street in the Hilltop neighborhood.
- As the 2025 Aminah Robinson Writing Resident, Raeghan Buchanan will live and work in the late artist’s home for three months.
- Buchanan is working on an illustrated Black history book featuring historical leaders.
- The book will be in a more serious style than Buchanan’s previous graphic novels.
Raeghan Buchanan never met Aminah Robinson in person, but she nonetheless feels a kinship with the late esteemed Columbus artist.
A writer and visual artist herself, Buchanan will soon feel an even closer connection on May 1, when she’ll begin living and working in Robinson’s home studio for three months as the 2025 Aminah Robinson Writing Resident.
“I’ve read about Aminah and seen a lot of her work. I feel inspired by her and the way our community talks about her,” the Columbus College of Art & Design graduate said.
“I feel like a part of a big tapestry working to honor Aminah.”
A panel of artists and scholars chose Buchanan for the residency, which supports Black writers, scholars and researchers in homage of its namesake’s meticulous research and writing practices. It is one of three residency and fellowship programs in the Aminah Robinson Legacy Project at the Columbus Museum of Art (CMA).
Buchanan, who also received an unrestricted cash award, has seen her work published in several graphic novels, and she’s self-published collections of illustrations and essays on Black punk music.
After putting down her sketch pencil “for a long time,” she has picked it back up to resume a project she began in 2018 during her residency.
“I’m working on an illustrated Black history book and giving a small overview of different historical leaders,” she said.
“It represents a lot of my interests put together. I’m doing more experimenting with portraiture and crosshatching. It will be in more of a serious style than my graphic novels. I want to depict historical leaders as more stately.”
Buchanan’s research turned up a trove of details not often taught in classrooms, she said.
“I started reading biographies and realizing some of the little snapshots were not accurate, which led me to reading more about what I didn’t know much about,” she explained.
Until the finished product is available, some of Buchanan’s murals can be seen at Blockfort Gallery, Zora’s House and Ava’s Taste of the Caribbean in the Hilltop.