Mom & Daughter Capture 15 Five Foot Rabbits in Dedham!

DEDHAM, MA (June 2018)—Author and public art advocate Shala Howell will be making a day-long appearance at the Mother Brook Arts & Community Center’s 5th Anniversary Festival on June 16, to share her book What’s That, Mom?, featuring Dedham’s beloved bunny-themed public sculpture project.

Howell’s first book, What’s That, Mom? How to Use Public Art to Engage Your Children with the World Around Them… Without Being an Artist Yourself, offers rich, photographic documentation of the 2012 Dedham Public Art Project, which featured 15 five-foot rabbit sculptures painted by local artists and installed all over town before they were auctioned to raise money for the nascent Mother Brook Arts & Community Center. The crouching rabbit form was a nod to the iconic rabbit pattern found on the historic Dedham Pottery, produced over 100 years ago and known for its signature crackle glaze and repeating crouching rabbit design, officially referred to as "the Dedham rabbit.”

Along with commentary and hundreds of photos of Dedham’s rabbit sculptures, Howell’s book “What’s That, Mom?” provides accessible, practical strategies for using public art to spark conversations with children between the ages of 3 and 10, regardless of one’s artistic talent or insight. “Every time your child asks you a question, what she’s really doing is inviting you to have a conversation,” Howell said. “All you have to do is let yourself participate—even if the subject is one you don’t currently know anything about.”

Mother Brook Arts & Community Center, located in the former Avery Elementary School on High Street in Dedham, is inviting the entire community to help celebrate its 5th Anniversary with a festival and open house on Saturday June 16. The day-long celebration will include children's activities including face painting, bounce house and raffles, as well as refreshments and musical performances. Twenty-five MBACC resident artists’ studios will be open to the public, as will the all-new outdoor performance park nestled next to the historic Mother Brook.

As part of the Mother Brook festival, Shala Howell will be sharing and signing her book about the 2012 Dedham public art project, as well as debuting her new book, What’s That, Mom? Field Notes from Your Encounters with Public Art Out in the Wild. The second book is a companion journal, designed to help families document their conversations and encounters with public art. Howell will be accompanied at the event by Dedham resident, NY Times best-selling author/illustrator, and member of MBACC’s Advisory Board, Peter H. Reynolds. In keeping with support for public art initiatives, Reynolds will be painting a 5-foot guitar sculpture, which will be featured this fall as part of an all-new public arts initiative called “GuitARTS,” in Norwood, a project spearheaded by Ernie Boch, Jr. and his non-profit arts organization, Music Drives Us, to raise awareness for the arts and raise funds for music education. Starting in September, the guitars will be showcased in various prominent public and private spaces throughout Norwood, much like the Dedham rabbits were displayed around Dedham in 2012.

In honor of MBACC’s 5th Anniversary, the Dedham Public Art Project will also be displaying at least two of the original rabbit sculptures at the festival, and preparing to add one all-new five-foot rabbit to its portfolio this summer with public installation set for September. Artists are encouraged to submit designsArtists are encouraged to submit designs for the new sculpture by June 15th and DPAP hopes to announce the winning artist at the MBACC anniversary event. After the new rabbit sculpture is exhibited, it will be auctioned off in October at MBACC’s fall fundraising gala.

The 5th Anniversary Mother Brook event will help put a spotlight on the organization’s efforts to complete a $50,000 fundraising initiative, in order to receive a matching grant from MassDevelopment. The campaign will allow MBACC to make over its auditorium performance space, providing modern, comfortable theater seating, state of the art lighting, acoustics and projection systems, and balcony seating. To make this dream a reality, the organization must raise $50,000, at a minimum, by June 28, 2018. While festival attendees will be encouraged to support the fundraiser, the opportunity to support the effort is open to anyone via the web www.patronicity.com/MBACC or by sending a check payable to “Mother Brook Arts & Community Center” to P. O. Box 1003, Dedham, MA 02027 – making sure to write "Patronicity MBACC" in the memo line.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shala Howell is an author and popular blogger focused on fostering curiosity in children and their parents. Her blog “Caterpickles,” has enjoy hundreds of thousands of visitors over the past five years. Howell has also spent two decades helping companies translate some of the world’s most complicated concepts into actionable, understandable English. Now she turns her attention to a more complex problem -- fostering children’s curiosity and engagement in the scientific, artistic, and linguistic world that surrounds them. Shala Howell can be reached at shalahowell@gmail.com, on Twitter @ShalaHowell, or by visiting www.caterpickles.com.