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MLT Facade Art – Children Invited to Participate
Children invited to create joyful canvases for Phase 2 of MLT’s outdoor art installation
The response has been overwhelming. All canvases have now been reserved. If you wish to be placed on a waitlist please register at the Reserve Art Kit link below. We will let you know if we have a lot for you and when to come pick it up.
• 27 art kits available
• Children must sign-up to pick up kits on Monday, July 20, from 2-4 p.m. at the MLT Firehouse terrace (12 School Street, Marblehead)
• Completed children’s art canvases must be returned by July 27 by 5 p.m.
• Children’s art canvases will be displayed for the month of August
Marblehead Little Theatre extends a special invitation to children and their families to create their own individual canvases for display on the façade of the MLT Firehouse in Phase 2 of MLT’s outdoor art installation. Up to 27 children’s individual canvases will be sewn into banners to replace three of the seven canvases created by artist-in-residence Jeremy Barnett now on display in Phase 1 of the installation.
“Phase 2 for children is part of MLT’s mission of community engagement and arts education and gives young people a chance to use simple shapes and bold colors to express and celebrate their own strong, expressive feelings,” Barnett said.
The Phase 2 take-home kits will be available for distribution on Monday, July 20, from 2 to 4 p.m. on the MLT Firehouse Terrace at 12 School Street. Kits include one pre-measured and primed 24-inch by 36-inch wide piece of canvas, a set of red, yellow, green, blue, brown and white latex paints and instructions with a link to instructional videos on the MLT website.
The young artists must provide their own application tools, “but anything from brooms, paint brushes, to sponges and even a finger-painting technique can be used,” Barnett said. “No experience is necessary. The only requirement is that the young artists have the courage and desire to share their expressions with the public.”
To participate, children and their families must sign-up
to reserve a Phase 2 Kit and commit to completing the project.
Sign Up to Reserve your Art Kit Here
Participation is limited to up to 27 children. Everyone must wear a mask and maintain proper social distancing at all times during pick-up.
“These take-home kits encourage children and their families to create their own works of art,” Barnett said. “The videos will offer some ideas of how children might get started, but the work ultimately will be up to the young artists.”
Completed canvases must be returned to the MLT vestibule by the final and firm due date of Monday, July 27 at 5 p.m., allowing the children one week to complete their canvases and five days for Barnett to piece the banners together.
The individual canvases will be permanently sewn together to create the Phase 2 banners. These will be displayed on the Firehouse façade from August 1 through August 31. The artwork will become the property of Marblehead Little Theatre until the banners find an appropriate permanent home.
“Phase 2 allows children and their families to engage in a communal project while still maintaining distance,” Barnett said. “When assembled and displayed, it is hoped the paintings will revive the communal spirit of the arts in Marblehead and serve as a reminder that we are still a community, even when separated.”
A place to create art – Summer 2020
MLT to celebrate the arts and Fourth of July
with exhibit of 5 custom painted canvases
on its firehouse brick facade
• Project conceived & executed by Marblehead native Jeremy Barnett
• Canvases to be installed by July 4
Although there are no current live performances in the Marblehead Little Theatre firehouse following the state’s COVID-19 policies, MLT will celebrate the arts and The Fourth of July with five custom painted canvases to be installed on the façade of its historic brick building located at 12 School Street in Marblehead.
The project was proposed and executed by Marblehead native and artist Jeremy Barnett.
Upon hearing The Marblehead Festival of Arts had been cancelled like so many community events across the country, Barnett wanted the arts to still be celebrated during Fourth of July week.
Barnett said, “Marblehead Little Theatre is important to me, my family, and to the quality of life in Marblehead, which I still consider to be my home despite having lived elsewhere for many years. I wanted to pay homage to MLT in a way that would keep MLT visually alive during this unusual period when theatres are closed.”
“If people cannot gather inside MLT’s Firehouse Theatre, then let its exterior offer the inspiration and joy that its performances have provided for so long,” he said. “History tells us that when the unexpected occurs, that is when the arts become fuel for the creative spirit.”
Barnett’s entry into the backstage world of theater was as a member of the run crew for Marblehead Little Theatre’s 1992 production of “Oliver” when he was 14 years old. Since then he has been an award-winning scenic designer for theatres across the country and, as an artist, has exhibited in venues on three continents.
Barnett’s installation artwork uses simple shapes and bold colors to create strong, joyful feelings. His goal is to make his art accessible and relatable to all audiences. The canvases for MLT are inspired by the joy of summer, dedicated to the ideas of hope and community within the context of current events. “They are an aggressively non-cynical response to these challenging times,” he said.
The canvases will be arranged as four vertical canvases left and right of the firehouse wooden doors featuring organic shapes serving as abstract supports for a frieze made of two canvases across the top of the wooden doors. The fifth canvas – 7 feet high and 20 feet wide – on the Firehouse’s second story is a series of vibrant shapes suggesting the energy of summer, fireworks, ice cream sprinkles and bursting bottles of champagne.
Barnett is planning a Phase 2 project that will invite Marblehead children to create their own smaller canvases that will be sewn together to replace his original work.
About Jeremy Barnett
Jeremy Barnett is a Detroit-based scenic and event designer. He is a co-founding member of Amarant Design Collective, a Detroit-based installation art organization. Jeremy is a graduate of Marblehead High School. He earned a Master’s of Fine Arts in Scenic Design from Boston University and a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Drama from Carnegie Mellon University. He studied photography at Pittsburgh Filmmakers Institute and at Studio Art Centers International in Florence Italy. He studied Stone Sculpture at the Tengenenge Sculpture Gallery in Guruve, Zimbabwe. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine from 2003 to 2005.
Barnett teaches scenic design and related crafts at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. His wife Kendra Soule Barnett and children Jacob, 10, and Vivienne, 7, are spending the summer in his hometown of Marblehead, Massachusetts. For more information, visit jeremybarnett.com
Public Exhibit of Children Art
MLT’S SUMMER OUTDOOR ART EXHIBIT PHASE 2 FEATURES 37 CHILDREN’S PAINTINGS
Exhibit on display for month of August
In a celebration of color and exuberant creativity, the front of Marblehead Little Theatre is now bedecked with 37 canvases painted by children in Phase 2 of MLT’s outdoor summer art exhibit.
The vivacious canvases were painted in response to an invitation to local children issued by MLT and artist Jeremy Barnett to make their own artwork and submit these pieces in one week. The 37 canvases have been sewn together in a veritable COVID quilt and displayed on the facade of the theatre located at 12 School Street where they will be on display for the month of August.
“Marblehead has always been a community that is supportive and enthusiastic about the arts.” Barnett said. “I came up with the idea of publicly displaying paintings because I couldn’t bear the idea of a summer in Marblehead without a focus on the arts. But more than that, it felt important to have an expression of community art. When the children’s paintings came in, that’s exactly what we got. We saw bursts of color, portraits of families, depictions of summer, scenes of Marblehead, and even an expression of patriotism. Some are pictorial, some are abstract. All of them are bright. And all of them are beautiful.”
Barnett thanks the young participants for their artistic generosity and MLT for its ongoing support of the arts at all levels.
The canvases created by Jeremy Barnett for Phase 1 of this exhibit are available for purchases or alternative exhibition. For more information contact: Jeremy Barnett 781-910-7759 barnett811@yahoo.com
