More than you really want to know about Natick, Mass.
The Wellesley Society of Artists‘ summer show, “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” is on display at the Natick Morse Institute Library (14 E. Central St.) in the Lebowitz Meeting Hall for July and August.
About two dozen paintings capture summery themes, including baseball, kayaking, ice cream, and playing at the beach.
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We visited Natick Mall’s Los Trompos Experience, which consists of eight colorfully woven tops that you can sit or stand in and go for a spin in on the first floor. They’ll be there until July 9.
Our experience was that these tops aren’t exactly going to get you dizzy. You need to yank pretty hard on them to get them going, and even then you won’t get much in the way of wind-in-your-hair photos. But they’re fun to sit in and do make for good Instagram pics.
Shoppers took turns while we were there trying out the different tops and striking poses.
This is the latest in a series of art installations at the Mall, with big meerkats invading last year. A dream scenario might be a combo installation of meerkats in the tops.
Also at the mall, the Zero Empty Spaces working artists’ studios on the ground floor have some new faces since we posted about a visit there last year.
They also have a website.
Artist Nancy Boyle, who shared photos from Zero Empty Spaces, has been at the location since May 2022.
“It is very nice for art making. The volume of walk-in visitors varies. Visitors are very pleasant and extremely positive about the use of the space for what we are doing,” Boyle writes. “Having the space has helped me expand my art style—larger work, looser. Having the community is great. And, we are visible to each other rather than locked into rooms as many studios are.”
Nancy Boyle
Wendy Ross
Heneni Art
Cheryl Eugenia Barnes
Kevin Baldwin
Avery Bondar, a ceramics artistA steady stream of visitors checked out the Natick Art Association’s Art in the Park event at Shaw Park on sunny Sunday at that nice green space across the street from Bacon Free Library.
A great variety of art was on display from woodwork to photo postcards and from paintings to fabrics.
Musical entertainment was provided by Always in Season.
Natick's Art in the Park celebrates creativity https://t.co/9pIDIw4UD4 @NAA_NatickArt pic.twitter.com/4sEDH82gst
— Natick Report (@NatickReport) June 12, 2023
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If you want to learn what’s most important to your neighbors, visit the just-installed “What’s in Your Heart” outdoor art exhibit located at the chain link fence surrounding the property at One South Main St. (That’s the lot that has been empty since a July 2019 fire gutted a handful of businesses.)
These are just a few of the 2,087 wooden hearts that make up the outdoor art installation, “What’s in Your Heart?”Organizer Denise Girardin, assisted by Jo LaFalce, brought the project to life. They and over a dozen volunteers asked everyone from school kids to Community Center visitors to Morse Institute library patrons the burning question: “What’s in Your Heart?”
1,910 people fell in love with the idea, painting 2,087 4 x 4″ wooden hearts with the distilled version of what was most important to them. Volunteers—let’s title them Keepers of the Sentiments— have taken seriously their job of securing hearts to fence, delaying the installation until the weather was cooperative. Each wooden heart has been treated with tenderness and mercy to ensure that not a single one is broken. If only our fragile human hearts received such loving care.
Unchained sentiments have been affixed to Natick’s most visible chain-link fence. There’s something poetic in that.The Natick Center Cultural District served as a fiscal agent for the project so that donations could be made as charitable tax deductible contributions. Local businesses, organizations, and individuals generously provided donations for materials, and created hearts of their own for this civic-minded project.
Keep reading to find out what’s in the hearts of your neighbors. For thousands more sentiments, visit the fence.
Natick’s most prominent undeveloped space, the fenced off 1 South Main St. plot resulting from the 2019 fire that razed a handful of businesses, could start returning to life by May or June. When they do, they should thank Denise Girardin and Jo LaFalce for the hours of clean-up work they did on the site ahead of the “What’s in Your Heart” installation. Read more in Natick Report’s December 2022 update post about the property.
The appearance of Brown Elementary School‘s humble cinderblock-walled lobby recently underwent an dramatic transformation from functional-but-boring to wow, thanks to the creative skills of artist-in-resident Joe Pimentel, along with a community partnership between the school’s PTO, the Natick Education Foundation, and the Natick Cultural Council.
Add the enthusiasm of Brown’s 450+ kindergarten through 4th-grade students and the wider school community, mix in the organizational skills of visual arts educator Michelle Parven, and the results speak for themselves. Brown School now has a welcoming, vibrant, colorful mural, one that incorporated student voice and design ownership during every step of the process.
School community values of empathy, respect, hard work, and solving problems together are central tenets of the “Our School Community” theme of the new Brown Elementary School mural.Parven found Pimentel on Instagram and was immediately impressed with his extensive experience working on similar projects. When a school partners with Pimentel on a project, the kids are fully involved from the idea phase through project completion, when it’s all hands on deck to help with the actual painting. “In October, students had a meeting over Zoom with him and then generated drawings on our theme, ‘Our School Community,'” Parven said in an email exchange with Natick Report. “He sent drafts of the design to me, and working with Brown School administrators, we made edits to come up with a final version.”
Visual arts educator Michelle Parven spearheaded the project last year by successfully applying for a generous grant from Natick Education Foundation, which covered about 75% of the cost of the mural. PTO funding and a grant from the Natick Cultural Council covered the balance. Once the funding was secured, Parven sent out a request for proposals to about a dozen muralists who do this kind of work. Pimentel was awarded the residency based on his extensive experience and his process of involving kids in every aspect of the mural’s design and execution.In March Pimentel traveled from his home in the bucolic Hudson Valley area of New York to spend a week making the Brown students’ vision come to life. “The students submitted over 300 drawings based on what makes their school community special,” he said. “I then took their drawings and connected them with my center mandala and patterns to make it a full collaboration. One of the main things I like to get across is to be determined on making your day dreams come true and follow your passion.”
The project was kept very much under wraps until completion, but now that pics are all over social media, we get to join in on the excitement. Enjoy these great visuals. (All photos courtesy of artist Joe Pimentel.)
“One of my favorite parts of the week is when the students walk down as a class and point out to one another on which shape they painted,” Pimentel said. “This gave them a sense of ownership and leaving their mark on the wall so they can revisit in the future.”
How to personalize a school—just add creativity and paint.
Proud Brown Elementary School students in front of the completed mural. More great Brown School art on Insta.
After a few weeks at home, Pimentel will be on to his next installation, this time at Poughkeepsie High School in New York.
The Parsons School of Design graduate in 2010 took part in an artist-in-residency program in Bali, Indonesia for 3 months under the direction of artist Dewa Nyoman Batuan, who specialized in Mandala paintings. The experience of Balinese culture, coupled with the teachings of an artist who had truly mastered his craft, created a life-changing impact on Pimental’s process. Several years later he established his own business, Pimentel Murals, and built a following by first completing projects locally and then extending to other areas in New York, New Jersey and Long Island. He has completed over 100 murals to date with a wide range of themes, styles, and various degrees of involvement from students from 1st through 12th grade.
