The latest exhibition in the Community Gallery Program entitled “Let There Be Light” will be opening on Friday, November 30 in conjunction with the city of Worcester’s annual Festival of Lights. The exhibition will run through February 13th.
The exhibition includes the work of nine artists working across a range of mediums that include LED light installation, black and white and color photography, oil painting, ink drawing on paper and image transfers on plexi-glass, exhibited throughout the downtown community gallery footprint. This includes windows on Franklin, Portland and Southbridge Streets as well as the City Hall Gallery, at 455 Main Street, where the Worcester Alliance of Photographers will be showcasing works by 25 photographers in a related exhibition also entitled “Let There Be Light.”
“We are pleased to shine a light on Worcester’s incredible creativity and the contributions that creativity makes in establishing downtown as a livable, walkable community,” said Erin Williams, Cultural Development Director.
In conjunction with the Worcester Windows Winter exhibition, the City and the Worcester Cultural Coalition are inviting businesses in the downtown and the local public to participate on the City’s first “Let There Be Light” creative display contest. The contest, much like the Worcester Windows Community Gallery, is intended to spark creativity, encourage the local public to walk through the downtown, and promote increased community engagement.
This storefront business initiative is designed to highlight the Festival of Lights, which will include the lighting of the tree, the opening of the new ice-rink on the Worcester Common Oval, as well as many other festive events taking place in and around downtown through the end of December.
The contest will test participating businesses’ creativity in three categories: best interpretation of Let There Be Light theme; most inviting for viewers, and most festive. Businesses who wish to participate must decorate their windows by November 30. The public will then be able to vote based on the criteria above. Paper ballots will be available and can be submitted at each participating business location. The public can also “like” their favorite entry on Facebookhere.
As mentioned, Worcester City Hall at 455 Main Street will be featuring works of the Worcester Alliance of Photographers. In addition, other participating locations include: Bay State Savings Bank at 32-36 Franklin Street, which will feature the photography of local artists Matthew J. Ginzel and Carlianne Raber, and painters Karen Evans, Christy Patrick, and Klaus Postler; 60 Franklin Street, which will feature the work of local visual artist Brian Kane from Cambridge; The Hanover Theatre at 2 Southbridge Street, which will feature the paintings and drawings of local artists Jenny Tibbetts, Kieran Ryan, and Eileen Claveloux, who speaks of her participation in “Let There be Light” and its relation to her unique art and her own harrowing family history.
“My work utilizes digital and analog and media processes. I began to examine my family history some years ago, in particular a silenced history about the Armenian Genocide and my grandmother’s family. I am fascinated by the intersections of story, history and art. Also, perhaps because my first name means light and my last name means key to the light, opening history and story to light seem to have become important components of my life and work,” she says.
This is just one story that shows how many different ways the theme of “Let There Be Light” can be interpreted. Those artists participating in Worcester Windows and those businesses who may choose to participate in the contest, are given free rein to interpret it, assuring a wide array of content all centered around the concept of “light.”
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