Maya McFadden Photos
Rae’gean Oakley with park’s new barrels.
Technically, the annual festival was canceled. Crowds still turned out for the second straight weekend to enjoy Wooster Square Park’s cherry blossoms — with the addition of a year-round tribute to their brilliance.
This year’s Wooster Square Cherry Blossom Festival, organized to coincide with the stunning annual emergence of the blossoms, was postponed for the second time because of the pandemic.
Alder Ellen Cupo at Saturday’s event.
But in addition to informal visits by people soaking in the display Saturday, Wooster Square resident and Cherry Blossom Festival committee member Charlotte Eliscu brought cherry blossom stencils and pink chalk spray paint to the center of the park. She invited neighbors to join her in blooming community through art.
Riverside Education Academy senior Rae’gean Oakley, 19 joined Eliscu and Wooster Square Alder Ellen Cupo with stenciling the park walkway.
Rae’gean Oakley with park’s new barrels.
First Oakley and Riverside art teacher Michael Pavano delivered five hand-painted trash barrels to the park to beautify and keep the community clean.
Pavano had assigned his class to perform the work. “The goal was to show them that they’re a part of the bigger world and can make a difference in it,” he said.
The barrels are painted with cherry blossom images, nature quotes, and animals. The class made all five cans in two weeks, with three to four students working on each barrel.
Oakley worked on two of the barrels, helping to make the cherry blossoms and the face of a wet-nosed cow. Each can is detailed with the student-artist names discreetly placed throughout the piece.
The city’s park and recs department supplied the class with the blank trash barrels.
The barrel project is a favorite of Oakley’s this year, she said. Despite the stresses brought about this past year with remote learning, Oakley said, she loves school. She said she plans to become a medical doctor and own her own hospital.
At the moment Oakley is working to become a certified nursing assistant (CNA). “These hospitals have too many requirements. People should just be able to get help when they need it,” she said.
Oakley’s interest in becoming a doctor came to her while in “Mr. P”‘s art class her sophomore year. “The freedom inspired me. I want people to come to my hospital freely,” she said.
Mr. P’s classroom is always “calm and positive,” Oakley said. He plays classical music and pushes each student to make art from their personal interest and passions.
Pavano said he seeks to inspire students to “find what you like and make it into a project.”
The team spray-painted Saturday in a similar fashion, with no rules.
Saturday was Oakley’s first time ever using spray paint. She laid down the biggest wooden cherry blossom stencil at the center of the walkway. She shook the paint can vigorously then began filling in the first petal of the blossom until each stencil petal glistened in pink.
After lifting the stencil, she smiled and said “I love it but lesson learned to use less next time so it’s not so wet.”
Meanwhile, the park filled with residents walking dogs, doing yoga, and having family photoshoots. The art team’s pink spray-painted flowers blossomed from the center of the park.
While painting, the group talked about the possibility of retuning in the summer for additional community public art events.
“Places With Love”
Around the corner from Wooster Square Park, a group of volunteers helped the Town Green District with an “Intersection to Connection” project renovating Chapel Street crosswalks.
On Saturday the team began the first step of the project, focused on beautifying the area and making crosswalks safer at the Chapel Street bridge intersections that connect various neighborhoods.
Town Green District Manager of Public Space Planning and Development Elizabeth Bickley partnered with Fair Haven design studio Atelier Cue to create the project’s vision of highlighting the neighborhoods’ identities.
Saturday was day one of a three-day project to first beautify and enhance crosswalks surrounding the Chapel Street bridge. Volunteers used traffic paint to stencil cherry blossoms and elm leaves across the crosswalks then identified the neighborhood names in white paint.
The intersection designs will identify Downtown, Long Wharf, the Hill, East Rock, and Wooster Square.
Marissa Dionne Mead and Ioana Barac.
Atelier Cue artist Ioana Barac and Marissa Dionne Mead chose a simple design to make maintenance easy. The duo added in cherry blossoms and elm leafs to make the designs personal to the neighborhoods.
“We want this to be the start of a evolution for safer and more pleasant walking in neighborhoods,” Bickley said.
The project’s goals are to slow down traffic, promote safer use of crosswalks, and create a connection between neighborhoods Bickley said.
Town Green District and the artists collected community, resident, and merchant input during the planning process, which started about two years ago.
The artists’ original idea was to focus the project only at the Chapel and State Street intersection. Then they realized the importance of prioritizing neighborhood identity and other unsafe crosswalks near the bridge, Barac said.
“This area can seem like you’re in the middle of nowhere,” Barac said. “This will help to reclaim the area and know where you are.”
Gioia Connell, 30 was among several volunteers Saturday.
She participated with the goal to bring safety and beauty to the neighborhood. “People can sense places that are cared for . This should be one of them, because it’s many people’s home,” she said. “Places with love bring love.”