1 of 2
Elijah Rock Seward posing with the one of the life-sized Seward Johnson bronze sculptures.
2 of 2
Amy Bartlett Wright during her work as an Artist in Residence for Linblad Expeditions in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.
That’s why when the month-long celebration of the arts returns in June 2019, it will leave behind opportunities for the community to continue to enjoy the fruits of artists’ labor in public spaces.
A Familiar Series Returns
When they first arrived to Main Street in 2018, the three SewardJohnson life-size works of art turned heads. The police officer in front of Olivia’s in the Village, the lawyer in front of the old Coke building and the woman sitting on the bench by the iconic and historic bank looked so very real.
Johnson’s bronze sculptures have been creating conversations for more half a century when displayed in public streets, in museums around the world, as well as in private collections.
The Cook Foundation and Gloucester Arts Festival are now bringing more of these sculptures to Gloucester Main Street.
Ten to be exact.
Each sculpture, as part of Johnson’s “Celebrating the Familiar” series, depicts people engaged in everyday activities.
The sculpture exhibit will remain on Main Street June through August 2019.
A Mural to Celebrate the Landscape and Watermen of the Region
Thanks to funding from the Cook Foundation, during the Gloucester Arts Festival in June 2019, a new mural will be painted on the 100-foot wall of the Rev-It-Up building on Main Street.
Painted by Amy Bartlett Wright of Rhode Island, the mural will celebrate the beautiful landscape of the Middle Peninsula region and the heritage of its watermen.
Wright, a professional artist for more than three decades, is a renowned muralist and natural science illustrator. She specializes in portraying animals in their environments in large and small scale that create a sense of space and dimension. Her work has been featured in the Smithsonian and by the National Park Service. She has ties to rural coastal Virginia and is no stranger to the culture of the region having spent many days at her grandmother’s home on the EasternShore looking for fossils at the Choptank River, exploring the shorelines, marshes and woods.
The mural will develop and take shape—and be available for the public to watch—over a three-week period in June 2019. It will then become a permanent part of Main Street’s public art collection for all to enjoy.
This marks the third mural painted on Main Street as part of the Cook Foundation’s investment in public art. The first, an artistic rendering of the history of the region, is on the side of the Gloucester Library at Main Street Center. A large, botanical-themed mural was completed on the exterior wall of The Silver Box. That work by Louise Jones, known as Ouizi professionally, drew inspiration from local flowers.
Learn more about the annual Gloucester Arts Festival, visit gloucesterartsfestival.com.