Views of Chelsea, and the Duckling Hospital

Today was the first day of the Chelsea Art Walk, it wraps up tomorrow if you have not already been out to all the stops make sure you get out here by 6pm on Sunday!!! I took some pictures of my travels, and the views I took in. I avoided pictures of most of the art, you need to visit the galleries to see that...

One of my first stops was at the "Chelsea Foundry" otherwise known as the New England Sculpture Service. Most major sculptures you see all over New England are "born" here including Make Way for Ducklings, and the new Tortoise and Hare over in Copley Square (the pictures here are for the version heading down south, I think it was Atlanta.) When one of the ducklings was "injured" these guys were ready to have another one ready to go, and in fact were in the early stages of casting a new duckling when it was found. Instead NESS went into medic mode and were able to repair the duckling and reset it. So yeah, this is where the ducklings are born, and this is the place that responds when one gets injured, nice.

At the foundry I met Nancy Schon, the artist responsible for the said ducklings and for the Tortuise/Hare sculpture. Just one of the many interesting people roaming around the Chelsea Art Walk she was a very nice person, and does more then children's fairy tale type items, in fact the foundry even had some of her smaller items for sale (which I would find out on the shuttle bus that one of my constituents from the Spencer Lofts actually did buy one.) I also had the pleasure of taking a tour of the industrial part of town with other sculptors from all over New England, well it was an impromptu tour as the shuttle driver took a wrong turn and tried to drop them off in the middle of Marginal Street, if your from Chelsea you know that essentially means the middle of nowhere. I was happy to direct the driver back to the proper stop, getting accolades from constituents on the shuttle and from the sculptors who were all great people (if this had happened in, oh I don't know late October I would imagine some would have been caling it a campaign gimmick lol.)

Every stop was more interesting then the last, with the last being a fully unexpected surprise. There were all sorts of paintings, photos, poem readings, plays across the city, which just shows how many artists we have in Chelsea. As new comers their love for the city exceeds that of many people who have been here for decades, with fixtures like the Tobin Bridge, and Soldiers Home Water Tower being especially popular sources of inspiration. I am also very thankful for the presence of a shuttle service as I was losing steam towards the end of the day. I was also ecstatic that I ran into so many people I knew.

I took the shuttle back to my neighborhood, a few short blocks from where I started my journey to investigate the Industrial Lofts and could not believe what I saw. The Industry Lofts people, being the savy marketers they are, brought in artists from all around Boston and hosted them inside newly completed empty lofts. It created a magnificent open house/art house that spanned three stories of massive loft spaces. The lofts themselves were breath taking, the windows were just massive, and the roof deck gave me views of my longtime neighborhood I had never imagined existed. The art was quite exquisite as well, especially the young lady selling stained glass and the artist next door who featured large paintings with an far east influence.

Temple Emmanuel has photos representing Chelsea's Jewish past, Roca had art and jewelry representing Chelsea's immigrant present, at City Hall we saw photos representing Chelsea then/now, the foundry showed Chelsea helping others, Industry/Pearl/Spencer lofts all look at the future of old industrial uses, and the list goes on with all the other participants.

This is Chelsea: All at once you had old time photos, industrial art, old houses, new loft condos, immigrants, an under current of committed community members banding toghter for the common good. Someone told me the art walk was a page in Chelsea's history turning, I disagree Chelsea has always been about transition and the blending of worlds, it's a change of tint not a change of color.

Picked up by Universal Hub on 06/01/2009
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