ABOUT

Halley Murray (she/her) is a queer 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 painter, 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 Boston 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 for African/black people.

From 2016-2021 Halley was Chair of the USM Boston Branch and USM Northern Regional Coordinator, facilitating numerous speaking events, workshops and protests on reparations throughout the northeast region. Since moving to St. Louis in 2021 she continues to volunteer her time and creative skills with USM, Uhuru Planet Reparations Apparel, the Uhuru Solidarity Center and the Black Power Blueprint, a local project building black self-determination on the North Side of St. Louis.

Doing reparations work as a white artist grounds her within this dying imperialist system that is built on violence and oppression. Reparations work led by the African People’s Socialist Party gives white people a way forward, to unite with the anti-colonial struggle of oppressed peoples worldwide to break free of imperialism forever and to reclaim their stolen land, labor and resources. This 10 minute speech by the revolutionary leader Chairman Omali Yeshitela sums up the grounding philosophy of African Internationalism which guides all the work of the Uhuru Movement.

Since 2023 Halley has been teaching at LitShop, an afterschool makerspace program that offers free programming for girls and gender expansive youth ages 10-18. She plays a leading role in the organization and teaches many classes, such as woodworking, printmaking, electronics and a signature hit class “Make Your Own Merch”. In 2026 she is headlining a new entrepreneurship program to teach girls how to run their own business as an artist.

A lifelong artist, it wasn’t until 2024 that Crowbar began to take her personal art career more seriously by selling her artwork at local markets and founded her own custom painting business. You can find her tabling at many markets and festivals throughout the year. If you’d like to discuss a project or collaboration, please get in touch via the contact page.