Alley art project builds community
Kaitlyn Willcoxon
Issue date: 10/8/09 Section: Arts
Sometimes art in the hallowed halls of a museum can seem hollow. The Kirkland Avenue mural project moved art into an alleyway and welcomed anyone to participate in its creation.
Last year, Haley Morgan, artist and Hampshire alum, began training at the Commonwealth Center for Change (C3) in Northampton. While there, someone proposed the project to create a mural on Kirkland Avenue to revitalize the space, and Morgan ran with it.
Kirkland Avenue is accessible from an alley located right next to Northampton Wools on Pleasant Street. On sunny days light pours over the different angles of the buildings that create the space.
Oddly enough, it is unclear who exactly owns the space. Harvey Kirkland originally owned the avenue during the Civil War. After his death, no one knew to whom he had given the alleyway. Much more recently, the business owners along Kirkland Avenue have shared the space for parking.
Morgan, however, interprets the space much more democratically as a thoroughfare for the many different kinds of people in Northampton.
"On Main Street everything is so tidy. [On Kirkland Avenue] people go to work, find shelter in the rain, do illicit things, you can always find photographers and poets back there," Morgan said.
C3, the organization behind the Kirkland Avenue Project, helped Morgan network to find supporting artists and ultimately secure the space for the mural.
To organize and mobilize the project, Morgan met with business owners so that, according to her, painters could "harmoniously be there, make art and build relationships with people."
Joe Blumenthal, owner of Downtown Sounds, is particularlys enthusiastic about the project. "It's been a no-man's-land for as long as I've been here, and it's a way to improve the place that I live," he said.
Though, she added, "[It must have been] interesting for them to have this young woman being positive about art in this alleyway where people are peeing."
Last year, Haley Morgan, artist and Hampshire alum, began training at the Commonwealth Center for Change (C3) in Northampton. While there, someone proposed the project to create a mural on Kirkland Avenue to revitalize the space, and Morgan ran with it.
Kirkland Avenue is accessible from an alley located right next to Northampton Wools on Pleasant Street. On sunny days light pours over the different angles of the buildings that create the space.
Oddly enough, it is unclear who exactly owns the space. Harvey Kirkland originally owned the avenue during the Civil War. After his death, no one knew to whom he had given the alleyway. Much more recently, the business owners along Kirkland Avenue have shared the space for parking.
Morgan, however, interprets the space much more democratically as a thoroughfare for the many different kinds of people in Northampton.
"On Main Street everything is so tidy. [On Kirkland Avenue] people go to work, find shelter in the rain, do illicit things, you can always find photographers and poets back there," Morgan said.
C3, the organization behind the Kirkland Avenue Project, helped Morgan network to find supporting artists and ultimately secure the space for the mural.
To organize and mobilize the project, Morgan met with business owners so that, according to her, painters could "harmoniously be there, make art and build relationships with people."
Joe Blumenthal, owner of Downtown Sounds, is particularlys enthusiastic about the project. "It's been a no-man's-land for as long as I've been here, and it's a way to improve the place that I live," he said.
Though, she added, "[It must have been] interesting for them to have this young woman being positive about art in this alleyway where people are peeing."
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