A Rainy ArtWalk Keeps It Warm

A steady rain couldn’t keep people away from ArtWalk, held in Westville Saturday afternoon. Though the neighborhood’s central streets were missing the usual crowds during the annual event, Edgewood Park stayed lively, and indoor activities in the artists’ studios in West River Arts and Lyric Hall on Whalley Avenue ensured ArtWalk kept its tradition of celebrating the arts — for 20 years and running — alive.

ArtWalk featured the panoply of vendors and free art activities — from tie-dying to spin art and other crafts — that have kept attendance strong for two decades. A row of food carts offered lunches and snacks to eager festivalgoers. Underneath the gazebo in Edgewood Park, the Walk-In Brownie camera obscura was parked safely out of the rain.

An iteration of the Unity Project — the first of which occurred in Alexandria, Virginia, in 2016, and which has appeared across the country since — took shape on the lawn nearby. Participants were asked first to fill out a sheet of paper with a list of identifiers to choose from. They ranged from personal questions about marital status and sexual identity to more fun questions (“I love the arts”; ​“I love sports”). We could choose as many as we felt applied to us. We were then directed to a circle of bamboo poles, each with a sign on it corresponding to one of the identifiers. Each person was given a cone of yarn. We were then instructed to run the yarn from pole to pole, passing through the center each time. The result was that each person spun a web of identification for themselves that overlapped with everyone else’s, forming a canopy of vivid colors the represented the community. The twentieth pole, which everyone was encouraged to use, stated simple ​“I am…” A blackboard resting against that pole contained several people’s completed statements.

At the other end of the lawn in Edgewood Park, A Broken Umbrella Theatre had set up a mobile van to support its current project, ​“Exchange,” centering on New Haven’s history with the telephone — beginning in 1880, when the country’s first telephone switchboard switched on in the Elm City. From now through August, A Broken Umbrella is collecting stories from New Haveners about the telephone, which it will use as the basis for a theater piece that the company will perform during City Wide Open Studios. At ArtWalk, people could record their own stories inside the van. Outside the van, you could pick up a telephone receiver, plug it into the side of a van, and hear a story yourself. This reporter, for example, was entertained by the tale of a horse that got loose somewhere in the city, and the chain of phone calls that led to its recapture and return home.

At the other end of the center of Westville, along Whalley Avenue, the artists’ studios in West River Arts, the space downstairs in Lotta Studio, and the Kehler Liddell Gallery buzzed with people. And Lyric Hall, which hosted the musical acts that had been slated to perform an on outdoor stage at Central Avenue, proved a warm and packed host to musicians including Fritz Horstman, the Bossa Nova Project, and Thabisa, a songwriter and singer who moved to New Haven from South Africa and made her auspicious New Haven debut on Lyric Hall’s stage. She claimed to have thrown together her band the day before and prepared only two songs. When those were done, someone in the audience demanded an encore.

“It depends on how loud you clap,” she said. The applause was loud enough for two more songs.

Meanwhile, nothing could keep Hillhouse High School’s marching band inside. Parading through Westville’s main streets and stopping briefly under the gas station overhang at Aquila Motors to partake of its unique acoustics, the Hillhouse band brought the ruckus to where people were gathered in Edgewood Park. Playing with rawness, discipline, and real heart, Hillhouse kept the beat jumping at ArtWalk, come what may.