Arts & Entertainment
Peabody High Students Beautify Vacant Storefronts with Art
The artwork will be displayed in several downtown storefronts until April 15.
Peabody High School students wanted to show history through making art in downtown Peabody, particularly in vacant storefront areas.
From now until April 15, the public can view their artwork in storefronts located at Peabody, from Monday, March 28 to Friday, April 15. The artwork created by 15 high school students is on display at 44, 46, 78 and 59 Main St. An opening reception for this project was held Saturday at the .
Merritt Kirkpatrick, curator of the , teamed up with Nancy Schaller, head of the Peabody Veterans Memorial High School Arts program, to put together this year's program.
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"This used to be a florist shop. Most people love flowers and dance, so we wanted to emphasize both," said Kayla Licata, a junior in Studio Art 2 at l.
The space is currently for rent, but was known as Jason Tiplady florist shop from 1947-1950, and Elizabeth Hinchey, a dance teacher, owned it from 1935-1936.
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Although they didn't know it until after they set it up, another team from the high school created a dance-related theme.
According to high school freshman Michael Senese, who is in Studio Art 2, this program is voluntary, but all students have Schaller as their teacher.
Senese and his cousin, high school junor Christina Catucci, who is taking Studio Art 3, "tried to incorporate the past and present" by creating a dance exhibit inside Dance with Deena at 59 Main St.
"We want to give back to the community. We want to have people recognize and think about what used to be there, not just about what's happening now," he said.
Catucci noted that passers-by stopped and looked when they were setting up the exhibit. "It was reassuring, because it means we did a good job."
Jenessa Bettencourt and Genesis Perez displayed a shoe exhibit at Peabody Music Box at 78 Main St. Brittany Quigley, Shamica Clermont, and Jackie Eldridge also worked on the shoe art, but they were not present at the opening reception.
All of the teams spent roughly half of their $200 allotted budget on materials.
