Newton Group Brings Public Art To 8 City Village Centers

NEWTON, MA — It's finally here, about 75 percent of Newton's population has gotten at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccination, more people are staring to go outdoors and rejoin the world.

To help facilitate that, and hopefully give a boost to area shops, a group has just finished installing a 25 recycled wooden doors, decorated by local and regional artists for a new public art project across eight city village centers.

"It feels like we're coming out of a tunnel, hopefully," said Meryl Kessler, chair of Newton Out Doors project and a board member of Newton Community Pride, the nonprofit group behind the effort.

Rather than just placing them in one spot, Newton Community Pride purposely wanted to create an initiative that included many parts of the city, marking the first city-wide public art initiative in the past three decades, according to Kessler.

"I can't think of any other such city-wide project, aside from the Halloween window painting, but this is the first professional art initiative."

Kessler said the organization wanted to encourage people from all over the city to get out of their cars and walk and bike through Newton's village centers as a community, and help support local merchants that have been hard hit because of the pandemic.

"I hope that people will be able to enjoy public art," Kessler said. "Our hope was to literally meet people where they are at a time when a lot of museums are closed or have limited access brining art directly to people."

So far, Kessler said people have been receiving the project well.

"People are into it," she said. "It's important to have events that bring us together as a community, particularly now. I think we've recognized how important our spaces are and how important public art is to creating spaces for people to gather."

The 25 doors were donated from a private renovation and a renovation from the Allen House, so have some mid 19th century character she said.

Another goal of the project was to help local creatives who have also been hit hard by the pandemic. Some 22 professional artists and five high school student artists took part in the project.

Kessler said the organization gave very minimal parameters to the artists, simply asking they create designs that inspire joy and curiosity.

"It was fun to see how the different artists approached the task of decorating the doors," she said. "They range from the whimsical to the more serious, written word to visual images. It's fun to see them all together and clustered."

The doors will be up through November and then the works will be auctioned off to support more public art in Newton.

Jenna Fisher is a news reporter for Patch. Got a tip? She can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna). Have a something you'd like posted on the Patch? Here's how.