stART on the Street Festival supports local art and culture

On Sunday, September 20, Worcester's Park Avenue boasted a different kind of traffic, as over 250 artists, 20 performers and an estimated 30,000 people flooded the street at the seventh Annual Worcester stART on the Street festival. Attendees of the free festival were as diverse as the artwork and craft displays that lined the streets and eccentric characters dotting the crowd of festival goers. Among them was a teenager dressed as Flash the superhero, dogs in colorful sweaters, a man in a full suit of armor, children dressed like munchkins and a performance group in spacemen costumes. People of all ages browsed the eclectic array of art. "Everybody has been so excited; people are so impressed by the variety and the diversity, there's such a varied amount of work here. I think it's great Worcester is promoting the local art scene," said artist Laura Fuller. Originally from Dayton, Ohio, Fuller sits under a white tent proudly displaying her "Pics and Panes:" original photographs mounted behind recycled or discarded windowpanes from old buildings.

A few tables down from Fuller was another tent, which displayed artwork from the opposite side of the equator. Abu Mwenye, a dreadlocked artist stands in front of large, colorful oil-paint canvases depicting vivid sunsets and abstract portraits. Mwenye moved to the United States eight years ago from Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania. His culture and land continue to serve as his artistic inspiration.

Between the art tents were a variety of different booths. WOOphoria had a booth commemorating the 100th anniversary of Sigmund Freud coming to Clark University for the first and the only speech he ever made in the United States. Visitors to this booth were invited to sit on a bed covered by a colorful quilt to contemplate answers to questions like, "If Worcester were a type of shoe, what kind of shoe would it be?" and "If Worcester were a television show, what would it be?" Conveniently located near the WOOphoria booth was the food court and several food vendors that provided a diverse offering of brain food ranging from freshly popped and seasoned kettle corn to frozen chocolate-covered bananas.

Watching over the crowd was Worcester Police Department Captain Jerry O'Rourke, an Assumption alum from the class of 1982. "It's always a very good crowd. It's a family-oriented crowd, lots of friendly people and everyone's just having a good time," said O'Rourke over the music from the main stage. Behind him adults and children wearing colorful face paint played with hula-hoops.

Worcester resident Ruth Bibace and her two granddaughters, Emma and Sarah, were first time attendees to the stART festival this year. "This is the first time I've been here and I think it was the most wonderful thing to see this kind of Worcester. I'm going to come every year," she exclaimed.

Such a large gathering of artists and performers is a rare occurrence in the city of Worcester but Leonard Richardson was eager to explain how the history of the Worcester art scene is his motivation behind the t-shirts sold. "The t-shirts say 'Paris of the 80's' because after the war, Worcester was a haven for artists. They would hang out in their garrets painting all day or drinking endless amounts of coffees in the Mountparnassus district of Worcester trading sandwiches for paintings. It was a lovely time for the intellectual scene of the world, a lot of great thinkers flocked to Worcester in the 80's," said Richardson, gesturing to the pile of red screen printed t-shirts he had for the guests.

While the art scene and community in Worcester is no longer as obvious as it was in the 80's, the stART festival was the perfect opportunity to unite all the craftsmen and artists together for the public to see. Professor of history at Assumption College, Carl Keyes attended the festival and commented, "It's a good cross-section of the Worcester area. I think sometimes people really get down on Worcester, that they feel it's in the shadow of Boston and Providence, but this is one of these events that makes Worcester an urban center that both college students and faculty should be proud of."

Like most art festivals, some artwork and performances were open to interpretation. Delaney Naylor, 16, from Doherty, MA seemed to speak for many of the less artistically inclined. "I liked it, but a lot of the stuff I didn't really understand. like the spacemen with their incense." Whether or not one understood the more abstract artwork and performances, the seventh stART on the Street festival not only offered a day of entertainment and culture for everyone, but allowed Worcester to showcase its impressive artistic community.