Two more downtown public art projects are on the drawing boards
Feb. 18, 2023 | By Buffy Boroughs | Community News Service Update April 5: The deadline for artist submissions for the Stowe Street Alley medallion and gateway pieces has been extended to May 8.
Nicole Grenier and MK Monley on the bridge beside 29 Stowe Street where they envision a new mural that will promote diversity and inclusion. Photo by Gordon Miller
A plan to add another mural to downtown Waterbury has found its blank canvas: the northeast side of Stowe Street Cafe and Bridgeside Books.
Property owners Nicole and John Grenier, who bought the building in 2021, stepped up to offer the space for a mural conceived by the Waterbury Area Anti-Racism Coalition. The grassroots organization has a mission “to create a community where every person can fully experience freedom, belonging and love on a daily basis” and envisions the mural to depict that ideal.
“We want it to be inclusive and we want people of color to feel welcomed,” said MK Monley, a coalition member and leader of its public art mission. “We want a diverse representation of people involved in the project.”
The mural project is the latest effort to bring public art to community spaces in Waterbury by a number of organizations. Most recently, the “Phoenix Rising” mural was added to the side of 5 Stowe Street in 2021 marking the 10 years of recovery since Tropical Storm Irene. Last summer, local school students working with a Burlington artist added murals to two large electrical boxes at the Stowe Street and Park Row intersections along Main Street.
Another project to refurbish the Stowe Street Alley with garden plants, a new walkway and commissioned artwork began last year and continues to advance with a recent call to artists to create two key anchors for the space.
The project for Stowe Street Alley — also known as Jack’s Alley in honor of Jack Carter, the longtime owner of the adjacent Stowe Street Emporium, who died in June 2021 — needs experienced engineers, landscape gardeners, artists and community members to bring it to fruition, said Karen Nevin, executive director of Revitalizing Waterbury, which is spearheading that project.
So far, the group has fundraised for the project by selling bricks engraved with up to three lines of text for $100 each that will be used in the walkway. The first brick sale brought in more than $20,000. Another offer to the community to purchase bricks ended recently with 71 more orders placed, Nevin said. Revitalizing Waterbury has issued a call for artists to design two key elements of the project: a medallion feature in the center of the alley and a gateway which Nevin described as the “focal point entrance from the street to the alley.” The solicitation specifies that the designs for both features “should create a welcoming environment and brings joy and tranquility to the site.” The materials used should also “stand the test of time,” Nevin said, and last 20 years through Vermont winters.
Interested artists can apply with their designs until March 15 for the medallion and by April 1 for the gateway. Applicants must have prior experience and references, and they can work solo or as a team. They’ll present their proposals to the project’s steering committee which includes community members. The selected candidates will receive up to $5,000 for the medallion and $30,000 for the gateway.
Mural concept finds a home
The back side of 29 Stowe Street will be transformed with a new mural. Photo by Gordon Miller
The anti-racism coalition’s mural project has been in the pipeline for three years, Monley said. It was one of the first concepts members said they wanted to create soon after the group formed in the summer of 2020. Initially, the concrete retaining wall under the Vermont Railroad bridge near Dac Rowe Park looked like an ideal site, but the group opted to look for an easier location to get permission.
The group then turned to downtown property owners looking for one willing to lend an outside wall to the project, Grenier said. None jumped at the suggestion, and then Nicole and John Grenier bought 29 Stowe Street where their cafe and the bookstore are located. Its rear side faces Railroad Street and is in good view from the bridge over the railroad tracks on Stowe Street.
While public art aims to beautify community spaces, some such projects have caused controversy elsewhere in Vermont. In downtown Burlington, the panels of the “Everyone Loves A Parade!” mural in an alley off Church Street were taken down in 2020 after years of criticism that it lacked representation of people of color and poorly depicted Native Americans.
Students at Vermont Law School called for the removal of another mural, complaining about its “inaccurate and dispiriting” racial content. After the artist filed a lawsuit to block the school from painting over the work, the law school administrators agreed to leave the mural intact but cover it with panels.
Monley didn’t specify how the coalition would avoid such conflict but emphasized that it will be a collaborative project between the artists and the community. The public will weigh in on the selection process for the artist, she added.
The building owners aren’t dissuaded by potential disagreements over the content, said Nicole Grenier, who is a member of the local anti-racism coalition. “I'm not entirely sure if controversy will be avoided, but I think not,” she said. “I'm hopeful that folks can sort of get past any perceived concerns that they might have.”
She continued, “Our priority is making sure that we have a sound project planned and supported that really does take the opportunity to uplift and celebrate the voices of BIPOC artists and also will include the community as much as possible both in the input around ultimately what the design will be.”
The mural project recently received approval from the town’s Development Review Board to install the mural and contract with an artist to maintain it over time. Now, the organizers are focused on raising money and issuing a call by spring for artists to submit designs.
Like the Jack’s Alley project, the mural shares Revitalizing Waterbury’s goal to bring public art to town and, as Nevin put it, to “turn a space into a place.”
More information is online about the Stowe Street Alley project and will be soon about the mural.
Community News Service is a collaboration with the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.