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Date: 2/22/2021
EASTHAMPTON – Prior to the pandemic, Easthampton City Arts (ECA) had a program or event every week throughout the year for the residents of Easthampton and visitors to enjoy.
“Before COVID, everything that Easthampton City Arts did was designed to bring people together through art walks, cultural chaos, bookfest. Everything we did was really about bringing people together and utilizing art in our public spaces as a way to engage and support the community,” said Pasqualina Azzarello, city arts coordinator for ECA.
When COVID-19 entered the city, there were no more events so Azzarello said ECA recalibrated their programming. She said because they are a municipal organization that values art in the way that it does and has had the support from the community, they came together as a coordinating committee and asked themselves how they could still support artists and engage the community but do it in entirely new ways that follow the health and safety protocols.
“When the pandemic first started, as the city arts coordinator, my heart really went out to the artist. I know that it is tough to be a working artist, it can be, even under the best of circumstances, and so this was very serious and I understood the serious nature of what this would mean,” she said.
It occurred to Azzarello that not only were artists going to miss performing their craft for the community, the community would also be missing the opportunities to experience art.
ECA wanted to support artists but also wanted to have new opportunities for the community to experience art and do it safely through virtual, public art in storefronts or various outdoor locations.
Among the number of ways that ECA supported artists were a new artist grants initiative, the transformation of their existing galleries into a studio residency program, and the use of the parking lot at the municipal office building at 50 Payson Ave. as an outdoor performance space in the fall of last year.
The grants initiative began when ECA secured $20,000 to support artists, and to create art that specifically engages the community. Azzarello said they did this because they knew the artists were having a tough time and that they were not able to support them through their regularly scheduled programming. In the first two phases, artists were all being supported to produce their own events. Azzarello said the third phase will be different.
ECA has three different gallery spaces – ECA Gallery, located inside Old Town Hall, The Mill Arts Project (MAP) Space in Eastworks, and Payson Gallery located at 50 Payson Ave. Prior to COVID-19, one gallery had quarterly shows and two of them had monthly shows. They also would coordinate a monthly art walk on the first Friday of every month and people go around and see all of the art.
By early summer 2020, they indefinitely postponed 22 gallery shows which affected close to 200 artists.
After having conversations with the artists to see if they wanted to make the art and hang it up for a limited number of people to see, Azzarello said they all said that they would rather hold off until it is safe. She said this meant that they had access to their galleries and because she is a painter and public muralist she understands the importance of a studio residency program.
“It is kind of amazing when you consider the immense number of artists of all kinds throughout our region and how much both industrial, rural, and urban space there is in this region and there is a noticeable lack of studio residency programs and so that became the next thing that we as an organization wanted to offer,” she said.
ECA created a program called Artworkspace Easthampton (AWE) and had an application process. Azzarello said they received more applications for that program than they have in the history of the organization. They set up three sessions at their ECA and MAP Space galleries. Each artist gets a total of two months of residency and they require that each artist provides an artist talk and some form of public sharing at the end of their residency to maintain public engagement.
AWE is supporting six artists and the third session is set to finish at the end of May. As an organization, Azzarello said they are interested in finding ways to keep supporting the program.
The event that they hosted in the fall supported two bands that had been grantees from the grant initiative. They painted large scale polka dots in the parking lot, people came with their own chairs and some brought take out from local restaurants.
Azzarello said this event was an example of many departments within the city coming together to create a space. She said they worked closely with Mayor Nicole LaChapelle, the city’s health agent, the director of the Department of Public Works (DPW).
This event was the first live music Easthampton had since early March. She told Reminder Publishing that the response was overwhelmingly positive. “I think that art is something that is always powerful but it is profound to experience art right now. It is a reminder of our humanity. We are in a time that is deeply challenging and troubling. When you look at the sickness and all of the deaths around the country and around the globe, this is a tremendously painful, challenging time,” she said.
She continued to say that to be able to experience art right now is a reminder of the cities vitality and humanity and she believes that was part of the experience in the fall.
Azzarello said she is moved by the ways that ECA has been able to continue to support artists thought this time.
“Artists are particularly vulnerable in terms of the economic impacts of covid because artists like ECA are here to engage in people so for all of the musicians who have not been able to perform live, for all of the poets who have not been able to attend readings, for all of the visual artists who have not been able to show their work and have an opening, its tremendously challenging,” she said.
Azzarello said it was also positive and moving for the artists to be able to perform for a live audience again.
To continue the artist and public engagement there will be a five-week series that will feature music, performance, poetry, and visual art. She said they are looking to have the first one begin the last weekend of April through May.
“Not only are we going through this pandemic for as long as we have been but we also will have just come out of a long New England winter, in a pandemic. I anticipate that our community will really look forward to being able to come together, to do it safely, and to experience music, poetry, and art, and to do those things in the presence of one another. I think will be an incredibly meaningful, moving, and positive experience,” Azzarello said.
ECA recently received $16,180 from the MassDOT Shared Winter Streets and Spaces grant that will help with the event.
“We are really pleased to have received this grant. This grant will support the purchasing of new equipment for the organization. Things like staging, sound systems, projectors, lighting, portable exhibition walls, planters. We can really develop the space,” said Azzarello.
While the details of this series are still being planned, check their website for any updates, www.easthamptoncityarts.com.