{"id":13989,"date":"2019-10-26T19:50:25","date_gmt":"2019-10-26T23:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=13989"},"modified":"2019-10-26T23:51:15","modified_gmt":"2019-10-27T03:51:15","slug":"tape-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2019\/10\/26\/tape-art\/","title":{"rendered":"How Tape Art Made Murals For Rural Towns Without Big, Centrally-Located Walls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: I\u2019ve been commissioned by the Essex County Community Foundation to help document\/promote cultural projects from its Creative County Initiative, which is supported by Boston\u2019s Barr Foundation.<\/em><\/p>\n

At the end of July, silhouettes of people drawn with green and blue tape began appearing across Groveland, West Newbury and Merrimac. They depicted locals from the past hundred years\u2014police chiefs, garden club members, the people who started the Santa parade, Jamaican immigrants who picked apples on a local farm. The life-sized portraits hung on the front doors of homes, on trees, on public buildings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were popping up all over the place,\u201d says Jennifer Leonard-Solis, co-chair of the Pentucket Arts Foundation, which brought in Providence\u2019s Tape Art<\/a> group for the \u201cDrawing From Our Past: A Tri-Town Tape Art Festival\u201d with support from the Essex County Community Foundation\u2019s Creative County Initiative. \u201cThat was when it got really exciting for us. The buzz was so strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard-Solis says, \u201cIt added such a whimsy. Just going down to the post offices was such a fun experience because you\u2019d find out who\u2019s next.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were so excited to see these popping up all over and finding these things,\u201d says Leah Smith, one of the leaders of Tape Art.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wound up being something very personal. Some people were recognizing people they actually knew,\u201d Leonard-Solis says. \u201cPeople wanted to go around to see who was hanging up and where. \u2026 You wanted to travel around and see. That was another way we were creating a bond between these three communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\""Pageant<\/a>
“Pageant Picnic Day\u201d from \u201cDrawing From Our Past: A Tri-Town Tape Art Festival\u201d at Pentucket Regional Middle School in West Newbury, July 27, 2019. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Looking For A Wall<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Tri-Town Tape Art Festival began in April 2018, when Leonard-Solis was driving to the Essex County Community Foundation\u2019s Arts & Culture Summit at The Cabot in Beverly with Marcia Nadeau, chair of Pentucket Regional High School\u2019s Fine and Performing Arts Department.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the way down, she was describing to me this great professional development she went to,\u201d Leonard-Solis recalls. At a teacher training at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, Nadeau had attended a workshop by Tape Art, a Providence group that creates temporary murals with tape. Nadeau told her, \u201cIf only you could get them to come here.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the Pentucket Arts Foundation applied to the Essex County Community Foundation\u2019s Creative County Initiative for funding to do just that.<\/p>\n

They won the grant and invited the Tape Art folks to visit. The project is one of a dozen cultural efforts that the foundation\u2019s initiative, with backing from Boston\u2019s\u00a0Barr Foundation, is supporting to mobilize North Shore artists, arts organizations and community and business leaders to enhance life in Essex County.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/a>
Michael Townsend at the \u201cPageant Picnic Day\u201d from \u201cDrawing From Our Past: A Tri-Town Tape Art Festival\u201d at Pentucket Regional Middle School in West Newbury, July 27, 2019. (Greg Cook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tape Art\u2019s Michael Townsend and Smith drove around Merrimac, Groveland and West Newbury searching for \u201cthe biggest most beautiful wall,\u201d Townsend says. \u201cWhat we were trying to find was some sense of a unifying physical space.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there aren\u2019t big, centrally-located walls in these these rural towns, about an hour\u2019s drive north of Boston.<\/p>\n

Then the Pentucket Arts Foundation invited them to watch a video that the organization produced called \u201cVoices of West Newbury\u201d to celebrate the town\u2019s bicentennial and the Arts Foundation\u2019s 15th anniversary. \u201cIt\u2019s a bunch of old timers talking about the essence of West Newbury,\u201d Leonard-Solis says.<\/p>\n