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Date: 8/8/2022
BELCHERTOWN – With the Belchertown Community Alliance’s (BCA) mural project in its final stages, the BCA presented a sketch of the final design to the Select Board during its Aug. 1 meeting.
BCA Board Grant Manager Sarah Maroney recapped the takeaways from the BCA’s community sessions where they posed the question, “If you know Belchertown you would know…”
“The consensus on that answer was the Belchertown Fair. That’s something that everybody associates with Belchertown. We learned from that Belchertown is about families and generational families in Belchertown,” she said. “We have a great pride in our nature and enjoyment of the outdoors, we are proud of our roots as a farming community, we are proud of our strong community sense and our hope for Belchertown is that it continues to have these amazing things and includes art and diversity.”
Since the mural will be put up on the property of the former Belchertown State School, Maroney said part of the idea behind the mural was to represent the people who lived there.
“Any representation of what happened at the state school is important for community members to make sure it’s not being glossed over. Working together with Community Options it was chosen that they wanted to represent a culture piece they had developed that worked with different stories from survivors from the Belchertown State School and ensured there was a piece in the mural to represent that,” she said.
Maroney added the mural is truly a community project.
“The BCA has no say in what we want in this, this is truly going by what the community says. All of that feedback went directly to Common Wealth Murals and the muralist, who was on the call that night and then translated that onto paper,” she said.
Maroney also detailed the next steps for the project as the BCA shoots for a September unveiling.
“Once the design is approved our next step is the final tweaks to the design and putting it on the 5 [feet] by 5 [feet] panels of fabric, they are primed and ready to go. Then we’ll have the paint parties, and they are scheduled for Food Truck Fridays again because that has large engagement, and then the Farmer’s Market. After that the muralist will do all of the final touches,” she said.
When asked by Board Clerk Ed Boscher about what kind of changes the mural could see in the final design, Maroney said there would be minor tweaks but nothing substantial.
Boscher also suggested changing the oriole on the design to look more like the high school mascot, but board Chair Jen Turner said it should be left as is.
“I would push back on that because that looks a bird, and that represents the rural aspect of our town and it goes to the high school but I don’t think that’s quite what it represents. I think the oriole because it is the mascot, but I think making more mascot-y looking may not capture both of those concepts,” she said.
The board unanimously approved the design for the mural.
More information about the mural including funding can be found here: http://archives.thereminder.com/localnews/belchertown/belchertown-community-alliance-mural-project-movin/.
During the meeting, the board also extended the current moratorium on using one of the flagpoles outside Town Hall for community use through the end of the year while the board continues to work to develop a policy for the flagpole.
The Belchertown Select Board next meets on Aug. 8 and coverage of that meeting will appear in the Aug. 19 edition of The Reminder.