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Partly Cloudy 'Home sweet home'
After nearly three years of work, West End Art’s community-based art installation “Home Sweet Home” has been completed and is available to view on the boardwalk at Edwards Boulevard. A formal unveiling is scheduled for this Sunday, Oct. 25, from 2 to 4 p.m.
The project consists of more than 400 pieces of artwork painted on wood reclaimed from the old boardwalk that was destroyed in Hurricane Sandy. Members of the community joined with artists from West End Arts to create 14 two-foot-square panels of artwork, each one representing the idea, “What does home mean to you?”
“The artists involved and myself believe in the power of healing through the arts,” said Jennifer Creed Aly, president of West End Arts. “Our mission was to design a community-based project that helped residents heal and come together while painting and also upon seeing it in its completion. There is no doubt it is working as residents and visitors gather at its location and talk about the positive outcome it is already having on the community.”
The completed project is roughly 30 feet long and two feet high.
West End Art’s vice president Elizabeth Connolly said that they were looking to find a project that residents could work on together as a therapeutic way to channel the trauma of Sandy. When they heard that chunks of the old boardwalk were being taken apart, they rushed down to grab some. Karen Michel was the lead artist for the project.
Over 500 artists from the community contributed to the project, Connolly — a recent appointee to the city’s new Arts Council — said. They chose to address the theme of “home” because so many residents were still displaced.
“Everybody had their own story of pain and grief associated with the hurricane — and rather than dwell on that we tried to put a positive spin on it,” Connolly said. “We just asked people if they could paint a picture of what home meant to them, to see the range of what people made was amazing.”
