ABOUT
I like to make things, teach how to make things, and organize for reparations.
Halley Murray is a creative jack-of-all-trades from Boston, Massachusetts who relocated to St. Louis, MO in November 2021. Also known as Comet Crowbar for her art, Halley is a maker, teacher, organizer, illustrator, screen-printer, designer, musician, artist, engineer and gardener among other things.
In 2008 she graduated from Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA with a BFA in Fine Arts, having focused on illustration and observational painting & drawing. From 2009-2015 she lived in Berlin, Germany following an Artist in Residence program, and in 2011 co-founded the annual Zine Fest Berlin, an internationally recognized arts festival for self-publication and comics.
In 2015 Halley moved back to the Boston area to work year-round as an afterschool teacher at Parts & Crafts, a kid’s makerspace and un-school program which was previously only a summer camp.
Around this time she learned about and joined the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, an organization of white people created by and working under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party, with the task of organizing within the white community to raise reparations to African people.
From 2017-2021 Halley was Chair of the USM Boston Branch and USM Northern Regional Coordinator, facilitating countless speaking events and workshops on reparations. In 2017 she was accepted as a member of the cadre organization the African People’s Solidarity Committee and was assigned to build Uhuru Planet Reparations Apparel, one of the 50+ economic development institutions of the Uhuru Movement for African Liberation.
Halley is now the Manager of Uhuru Planet and has moved to St. Louis to be part of building the new Uhuru Solidarity Center, a dynamic community center at 2654 Gravois Ave. This building is a store-front and office space for Uhuru Planet, and holds a calendar of events in solidarity with the local Black Power Blueprint project building black self determination on the North Side of St. Louis.
If you’d like to learn more or collaborate, please get in touch via the contact page.