Creating public space with art

By Matt Wilson and Al Wilson

We decorate our homes, offices or dorm rooms with family photos, prints, and vases of fragrant flowers. We frame our kids’ crayon drawings and display mementos of meaningful moments. In doing this, we are defining and expressing ourselves through the places we live.

Likewise, in a movement known as “Placemaking,” communities are increasingly seeing the value of designing and using public spaces to define and express shared values and strengthen the bonds between the people who use those spaces.

Naturally, arts and culture play a significant role in placemaking, bringing not just beauty and vibrancy to our public spaces, but economic benefits to our communities, too. That is particularly true here in the Massachusetts, where cities and communities within them often embrace their unique history in placemaking projects.

Here in Massachusetts, MassDevelopment, the state’s economic development and finance authority, helps fund Placemaking projects by sponsoring "Commonwealth Places.” Commonwealth Places is a “crowdgranting” program that funds select projects by municipalities and nonprofit organizations to revitalize public and community spaces in moderate- to low-income areas. Much like a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, Commonwealth Places, using the platform Patronicity, allows individual donors to contribute directly to a particular project. The twist is that if a project reaches its crowdsourced funding goal within 60 days, MassDevelopment awards a matching grant, allowing projects to instantly double their funding intake. Many of the projects MassDevelopment has supported emphasize or otherwise incorporate the arts.

Peabody’s Black Box Theater, which will soon be the newest tenant in the ArcWorks Community Art Center, a community cultural hub in the city’s downtown, is a Commonwealth Places grantee. Northeast Arc, an organization that serves people with disabilities and operates ArcWorks, started work on the theater last October. Envisioned as a space for theatrical productions, live music and other community events, Black Box Theater is a “central component of all our plans” to reinvigorate downtown Peabody, said Mayor Edward Bettencourt, Jr. at the groundbreaking.

Ultimately, the theater will provide job opportunities for local theater professionals and non-skilled jobs selling tickets and concessions. Northeast Arc aims to provide recreational opportunities for as many at 7800 visitors per year—and that’s really what it’s all about for Northeast Arc CEO Jo An Simons: bringing people together.

Next door in Lynn, “Beyond Walls,” a public art initiative in downtown Lynn spearheaded four major projects that revolved around lighting the underpasses of elevated MBTA tracks, illuminating and engaging sidewalks to increase walkability, and the creation of large-scale public art. Their flagship project, a 10-day Mural Festival, brought 20 locally and internationally renowned artists to Lynn to paint 15 murals. The festival drew 5000+ attendees and businesses—from the city’s art museum to the local coffeehouse—saw a big boost in sales during the festival as festival-goers spent an estimated $110,000!

To date, Commonwealth Places has supported 27 projects and awarded $682,000 in grants. More than 5000 individuals have contributed to campaigns, raising a total of $820,000. The program is still accepting applications.

With numerous studies showing the economic, educational, and social benefits of arts and culture in Massachusetts and beyond, MassDevelopment is making a sound investment each time it funds a placemaking project that deploys arts and culture to revitalize or strengthen one of our communities. In an era of ever shrinking public funding for the arts the agency is setting a powerful example about what is possible when we make a place for arts and culture—in our communities and in our budgeting process.

Matt Wilson is the executive director of MASSCreative. Al Wilson is the executive director and founder of Beyond Walls.