Parishioners commission mural to bring patron saint’s presence to historic market district, encourage visitors to visit shrine
DETROIT ─ It was a project a long time in the making, but motorists driving into downtown Detroit on Gratiot Avenue might notice a new mural in Eastern Market that pays tribute to St. Joseph the Worker.
The building-size mural of St. Joseph, working as a carpenter with a market in the background, is the newest addition of a series of murals that mark Detroit’s Eastern Market, one of the largest farmers markets in the Midwest.
The mural is the product of a four-year, $20,000 campaign by parishioners from nearby St. Joseph Shrine, who wanted to commission a mural of their patron saint to tie the parish to the surrounding community.
"Eastern Market has for decades now been a cultural center of the city, known for its street art and murals," said Daniel Egan, the St. Joseph Shrine parishioner who first envisioned and organized the mural effort. "It is absolutely appropriate for St. Joseph to be represented in that mix, in fact, it's imperative that he is. Not only is he a great model for what Detroit is (as) a working-class man who cared for his wife and foster son, he is also a great example for men and workers throughout this city."
Egan became a St. Joseph Shrine parishioner when the church – formerly part of Mother of Divine Mercy Parish – was entrusted to the care of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, a society of apostolic life in the pontifical right that celebrates the sacraments by way of the 1962 missal (informally known at the Traditional Latin Mass).
Since joining the parish, Egan has discussed with parish clergy and members the idea of commissioning a mural to mark the parish’s presence in the community.
“I figured St. Joseph Shrine has been here for 150 years; we should have a little piece of that action, so to speak, to put our mark in the community and speak to the community in an artistic way that is very much part of the culture," Egan said. "If there were ever someone who represented Eastern Market, it'd be St. Joseph, a man who provided for his family with the work of his hands."
The parish has been undergoing a historic renewal campaign since October 2017. The most prominent piece of the restoration is the church’s steeple and outer stonework, but Egan and fellow parishioners wanted to leave a mark outside the shrine’s boundaries and into the community.
“The idea was to paint an image of St. Joseph the Worker to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the parish (which happened in 2023),” Egan said. “We wanted to put forward this great historical figure who is a role model for us at St. Joseph Shrine, the parish, but who also perfectly fits what I think personifies what Detroit has historically valued, the working-class man, the family man, someone invested in taking care of his own and taking care of the community.”
In the summer of 2021, parishioners started contributing to a GoFundMe account to support the project, surpassing the goal of $20,000 within 48 hours. With funding secured, the next step was to find an artist.
An acquaintance pointed Egan to Elton Monroy Duran, a Mexican-born Detroit artist who lives in the city and is a parishioner of Most Holy Redeemer.
Duran, whose company is called Corpus Inc. and whose murals are featured throughout Mexicantown in Southwest Detroit, met with Egan to discuss how best to depict St. Joseph and his role in the Eastern Market community.
“Daniel had this idea of representing St. Jospeh outside the shrine for the people, to invite people outside to come visit the shrine and see who St. Joseph the Worker is,” Duran said. “We had different conversations at the beginning, exploring different areas like the Dequindre Cut, some buildings closer to the church. We wanted to have it in a spot that was near the church but, more importantly, would be seen by a lot of people.”
Duran is a visual artist who has lived in Detroit for the past 10 years. Originally, he wanted to study art in Berlin, but on his way to the German capital, he made a stop in Detroit and never left.
“Most of my work is in the Mexicantown area because of my heritage, and part of my heritage is my beliefs, my faith,” Duran said. “All my murals tell the story of a people. For instance, one is the Dream Pickers (on Vernon Highway, which depicts Most Holy Redeemer Church in the background). This man, a farmer holding an apple in one hand, and with the other hand, he is touching his heart, looking to the horizon; it’s like an act of faith. The dream picker is looking to the future, representing the generations to come.”
Egan and Duran collaborated on the final design of the mural, which depicts the saintly carpenter working in a market as if he had his own stall in the Eastern Market—the St. Joseph Shrine steeple towering over his right shoulder.
Duran didn’t want to clutter the mural with too many elements or themes, just enough for people to make the connection between the mural, the market and the neo-Gothic church that stands across Gratiot Avenue.
“Even though we are separated by the street, Daniel was pursuing this idea of connecting the Shrine to the neighborhood,” Duran said. “We looked at some other buildings next to the Shrine when first planning this, and then, for different reasons, the agreement didn’t work out. Finally, they found this other business across the street on the Eastern Market side, who agreed to put the mural there, connecting the Shrine to Eastern Market with different elements of the historic market in the mural.”
As Duran and Egan sketched out what they wanted the final product to look like, including how best to depict St. Joseph, Egan was more and more convinced Duran was the right choice to paint the mural.
“He impressed me by his knowledge of the Catholic Church and specifically his knowledge of the Catholic Church’s understanding of the role of an artist,” Egan said. “In one of my early conversations with him, he told me how inspired he was by reading one of the letters St. John Paul II wrote to artists, talking about how it is an incredible vocation and value to the church and a profession that has an important role for the world.
“As soon as I heard him speak about this Catholic idea of what art is and what an artist's role is, I knew this guy was perfect for the role,” Egan added.
When the mural is finished, the idea is that it will honor the patron of a nearby church and promote the dignity of the worker and the value of labor, appropriate for its location.
“We wanted to pay tribute to not only St. Joseph, of course, but also to the location and the setting of this mural,” Egan said. “It was important for Elton to not just paint a mural for the sake of painting a mural; he wanted to tell a story and is very passionate about connecting community with his artwork.
“One of the things that came out of his creative process is recognizing St. Joseph Shrine, the church that’s been around 150 years, how it has grown up with the Eastern Market, but also honoring the generations of farmers and workers who provided for their families in this historic market,” Egan continued.
The St. Joseph the Worker mural will be Duran’s first on Detroit’s east side. He hopes all Detroiters and people who look upon the mural can see St. Joseph as someone to whom they can relate.
“The idea is to invite everyone to St. Joseph Shrine. It’s trying to get the church to the people of Detroit, which is full of working-class people,” Duran said. “Detroit has a history with the working class, so the idea is to represent that through St. Joseph, being a family man, the foster father of Christ, being that provider."
There were times when Egan and Duran lamented that the mural probably wouldn't be completed. In truth, the final location of the mural was the fifth option they settled on, even after some written agreements were dropped and the project went back to square one.
Providentially, the mural's location is right across the street from the newly-established DeSales Park, a 4.2-acre lot St. Joseph Shrine purchased in November with the intention of building a new social hall and, eventually, a middle school.
But looking at the final project, Duran hopes it will inspire Detroiters to look to St. Joseph as an example of perseverance and dedication to one's craft.
"I am so happy with the end result of the mural," Duran said. "It was a big challenge in many different aspects, but now that it is completed, I hope for it to be an inspiration for the Detroit working-class people. Located in between St. Joseph Shrine and the Eastern Market, it converges as a symbol of food for the body and the spirit."
Egan hopes the mural will encourage people to explore more about St. Joseph the man, who in turn will point them to the shrine that bears his name.
“I hope this mural benefits the community and St. Joseph’s; with the mural on Gratiot, on any given week, there are hundreds of thousands of cars that drive along that main artery in and out of the city,” Egan said. “My simple hope is that it prompts people to ask the question, ‘Who is that?’ It is not going to be too difficult to identify: 'this is St. Joseph, the patron of this church across the street.’ Maybe it encourages people to walk in and visit that church, which is open every day.”
