Boston artist Mithsuca Berry has raised nearly $9,000 by selling Black Lives Matter T-shirts emblazoned with a colorful illustration the creator drew. Funds from the online sales will benefit bail funds for protestors and Black mutual aid collections.
Berry created the shirts to support demonstrators battling racial injustice and police brutality in Massachusetts and beyond. The artist’s process began on Sunday morning, mere hours before a local rally that later turned violent began.
“I woke up that day and I felt like I need to — and I want to — do a fund-raiser,” said Berry, a 20-year-old freelance artist and educator at the Institute of Contemporary Art. “Within two hours of it going up, the sales blew up.”
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Berry, who has more than 27,000 Instagram followers, promoted the campaign on that platform. The post drew thousands of likes and more than 100 comments and helped push the effort way beyond its original goal of $1,000.
The illustration is flooded with the artist’s signature style: a preference for bold colors and defined outlines. Created on the graphics editing software Procreate, the digital drawing features the side profile of a Black face, whose forehead is stamped with the BLM movement’s clenched fist symbol. An orange speech bubble wrapped in swirling green vines erupts from the figure’s mouth and reads “BLACK LIVES MATTER.”
“I listen to whatever my body tells me to do when it comes to my artwork,” Berry said. “It’s a mental process where I almost never plan outside of the moment.”
Thousands of people have contributed to campaigns aside from Berry’s initiative this past week. The Minnesota Freedom Fund, for example, raised $20 million in four days. But these donors received nothing in return other than the satisfaction of doing some good — as expected.
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Berry sees the value in giving people something tangible for their kindness.
“I want people to redistribute their wealth and as much as they could directly donate, it’s human nature to just want a thing,” Berry said. “I think that’s where the role of the artist comes in, to use their practice and craft to attract the eyes of other people.”
In this moment, Berry felt too overwhelmed — and, frankly, tired — by the current climate to attend the local demonstrations. So the artist turned to a familiar and effective habit: art as a form of online activism.
“Online activism like this has become a part of our culture," Berry said. "It’s the present, and it’s the future.”
Diti Kohli can be reached at diti.kohli@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ditikohli_.
Diti Kohli can be reached at diti.kohli@globe.com. Follow her @ditikohli_.