Easthampton City Arts offers $5,000 planning grant

Date: 10/24/2023

EASTHAMPTON — Easthampton City Arts recently announced two opportunities for artists, including the annual call to display work in the ECA Gallery. A $5,000 planning grant for an installation on Emerald Place is also open for proposals.

“This is a really interesting and important opportunity,” said Pasqualina Azzarello, the city’s arts coordinator, about the planning grant. “Whatever the final design is about, we want it to be a way to educate the public about climate change. So one of the requirements is to create opportunities to engage the very local public in that area.”

The honorarium will underwrite the planning for an installation on Emerald Place, which runs beside Lower Mill Pond. Azzarello said the grant is not to cover the costs of fabrication and installing the project. Rather, the grant supports conception and planning, and meeting with city officials to tailor the art to the neighborhood.

The design specifications state the designer or artist must be at once clear with their vision, but also flexible enough to incorporate relevant feedback as necessary from the City Project Team. The project team includes Azzarello, officials from the Planning Department, ECA Public Art Subcommittee, the DPW and possibly others. The planning will continue well into 2024, though installation will not begin until the city earmarks sufficient funding.

Emerald Place, a lane about half a mile long, offers a challenge to designers. The lane doesn’t have clear views of the pond and there’s no focal point. Those challenges, and that Emerald Place is open to traffic, with occupied houses to one side, may have prompted the project team to broaden suggest materials and features commonly used by the public works department.

Guardrails, fencing, bullards, sewer grates and sewer grate stencils may be featured in the design. A structure is permitted, though Azzarello said that funding for fabrication and installation is not without limits. The suggested budget is $10,000, with flexibility.

“We’re telling people that so they’re not proposing a $300,000 structure,” Azzarello said. “We’re very open to different forms that this idea might take.”

Murals, sculptures, paintings indoors and out, a pocket park with a bench, informational signage and environmental messaging may all be part of the project.

A Google map offering views of Emerald Place and a recording of an informational session on the planning grant can be found at easthamptoncityarts.com/resources/open-call-for-public-art. Azzarello strongly urged interested artists to watch the informational session.

The ECA is also on the hunt for carefully crafted artwork to display in the ECA Gallery, located in the Old Town Hall at 43 Main Street, in 2024. Azzarello, a member of the committee reviewing submissions, said a wide range of artistic styles and expressive modes are featured at the gallery. The municipal display space hosts shows for established artists and those less well known.

“We feature the work of a wide range of artists, some of whom are new and emerging, some who are mid-career and more established,” Azzarello said. “What they all have in common is the amount of care that each of the artists really puts into their work, in terms of the ideas they’re exploring, the process by which the art is made, as well as the craftsmanship.”

Azzarello urged artists of all types, in teams or solo, to submit work that engages a visitor as soon as they walk in the door. Artists will receive exposure, but also support.

“One thing that’s important for all the applicants to know is that their work is supported by a beautiful reception each month with Easthampton City Art’s Art Walk,” Azzarello said. “On the second Thursday of every month we encourage people from all over the region to come out to experience the work at ECA Gallery and all of the different venues in downtown Easthampton.”

Detailed information on submitting to display in the ECA Gallery can be found at easthamptoncityarts.com/resources/call-for-artists.