New Bedford, MA – New Bedford Creative announced that the city of New Bedford has been selected as one of eight municipalities in Massachusetts for “Making it Public,” a training and development program by New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) in partnership with Forecast Public Art and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.
Making it Public in MA is a dual-track professional development series, designed and facilitated by Forecast to foster more equitable opportunities for public artmaking while also preparing more artists to respond to calls for public art across Massachusetts. New Bedford joins the following cities in the Spring 2022 Making it Public cohort: Amherst, Attleboro, Fitchburg, Lowell, Natick, Salem, and Watertown.
Create os Futuro mural
Mark Salinas, senior project manager at Forecast, explains, “Making It Public offers a cohesive arts industry workshop approach for artists and municipal arts administrators that informs and enhances the efforts and outcomes of public art opportunities in their communities.”
Margo Saulnier, New Bedford’s creative strategist, says that New Bedford Creative partnered with the City of New Bedford’s Department of City Planning to co-write the proposal and apply for this opportunity. Saulnier will participate in the training with Laura Ryan, staff planner for the City of New Bedford, and Jasmyn Baird, senior creative fellow for New Bedford Creative.
After the program concludes, Saulnier says there will be an opportunity to utilize a $10,000 grant to do a temporary call for art, along with additional technical assistance support from Forecast and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. “Public art is a representation of our community values, so working with our local artists and the communities they live in will ultimately benefit all New Bedford residents,” she says.
By training municipal staff across Massachusetts to better support public artmaking and cultivating more artists to respond to calls for public art, NEFA aims to support more diverse, inclusive, and equitable public artmaking happening in communities across the state. Learn more at nefa.org/MakingItPublic.
