By Steven Froias / Contributing Writer
Posted Jan 5, 2019 at 9:39 PM
On Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2018, New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell announced the release of the city’s first comprehensive Arts and Culture Plan.
“This is a big deal,” he said in opening remarks in City Hall’s Ashley Room during a press conference. He noted that the plan builds upon an historic association with the arts in the city, but helps prepare it for even greater achievements.
“It creates a sense of shared purpose,” he went on. “This creates the opportunity for a more vibrant community.” He specifically touched upon the plan’s recommendations to create new cultural districts in the North and South ends — and the chance to lure even more investment into the creative economy of the city.
The collaborative effort to write the plan, he said, sent a signal that the arts “are worthy of your investment” to funders and private businesses alike. “Great stuff doesn’t come free,” he added.
Almost a year in the drafting, the release of the plan to the public during the City Hall ceremony — attended by dozens of the artists who helped shape it — was the capstone of a milestone year for the arts in New Bedford.
During 2018, the arts and culture community enjoyed unprecedented attention for how it distinguishes New Bedford as a city. It was recognized for its profound contribution to bettering the quality of urban life — and its large role as an economic driver for the entire region.
Indeed, New Bedford arts in 2018 was characterized by renewed purpose and energy — as well as the arrival of a significant sum of money as a down payment on the future growth of culture in the city and for the region.
In addition to city money, drawn from a dedicated Arts, Culture and Tourism Fund, the Barr Foundation, in partnership with the Community Foundation of Southeastern Massachusetts, and Barr-Klarman Massachusetts Arts Initiative each announced huge investments in New Bedford and on SouthCoast.
Combined with other collaborative ventures like the Co-Creative Center, DATMA (Design, Art, Technology Massachusetts) and SUPERFLAT NB — all arriving onto the scene in 2018 — the year represents a watershed moment for the arts in New Bedford.
The impact will be felt in 2019 and long afterward. It will leave its mark on city neighborhoods, its youth — and creative entrepreneurship moving forward.
It is for that reason we choose the New Bedford Arts Community as the Southcoast Business Persons of the Year.
Unpacking it all provides a glimpse into that future — and a roadmap for what to expect during the year ahead. In this story, we’ll look at some of the big developments of the last year and the role each will play into the next.
During 2018, the arts and culture community enjoyed unprecedented attention for how it distinguishes New Bedford as a city. It was recognized for its profound contribution to bettering the quality of urban life — and its large role as an economic driver for the entire region.
Indeed, New Bedford arts in 2018 was characterized by renewed purpose and energy — as well as the arrival of a significant sum of money as a down payment on the future growth of culture in the city and for the region.
In addition to city money, drawn from a dedicated Arts, Culture and Tourism Fund, the Barr Foundation, in partnership with the Community Foundation of Southeastern Massachusetts, and Barr-Klarman Massachusetts Arts Initiative each announced huge investments in New Bedford and on SouthCoast.
Combined with other collaborative ventures like the Co-Creative Center, DATMA (Design, Art, Technology Massachusetts) and SUPERFLAT NB — all arriving onto the scene in 2018 — the year represents a watershed moment for the arts in New Bedford.
The impact will be felt in 2019 and long afterward. It will leave its mark on city neighborhoods, its youth — and creative entrepreneurship moving forward.
It is for that reason we choose the New Bedford Arts Community as the Southcoast Business Persons of the Year.
Unpacking it all provides a glimpse into that future — and a roadmap for what to expect during the year ahead. In this story, we’ll look at some of the big developments of the last year and the role each will play into the next.
The New Bedford Arts & Culture Plan
The first of its kind for the city, the plan presented to the public on Dec. 18 was impressive in its reach and scope.
Drafted throughout the year, the planners conducted 50 one-on-one interviews, held five focus group meetings and four public meetings. They surveyed members of the public as well as local artists, and obtained comments on message boards placed throughout the city. The plan involved the hands-on management of personnel from City Hall, the consulting firm Webb Management Services of New York City and the New Bedford Economic Development Council.
The NBEDC, through Creative Strategist Margo Saulnier, will now oversee the implementation phase. That begins as 2019 dawns with the convening of a Creative Consortium of leaders nominated to serve by fellow artists and arts leaders.
The consortium will immediately form into three task forces: Public Art + Facilities; Placemaking + Community; and Fundraising + Distribution.
In all, the plan contains over 80 action items, large and small. Some of the highlights include the launching of the Wicked Cool Places competitive grant program; the establishment of cultural districts in the South and North ends of the city; and the creation of a city-wide public art policy.
To get the ball rolling, initial Wicked Cool Places grants were announced when the plan was presented at City Hall. The 12 recipients represent the goals of the plan as a whole.
Brooke Baptiste, the founder and organizer of the popular “Reggae on West Beach” summer music series in the South End, saw her work awarded one of those grants. She explains what that means not only to keep the music playing, but to hear even more of it in 2019.
“Knowing that I’m a grant recipient is a huge help to Reggae On West Beach in order to keep the event free and accessible to all,” she said.
“For the last show of the season in August (2019), Reggae On West Beach will feature a live reggae band. Large bands require more sound tech — which always equals more money.
“In collaboration with the City of New Bedford, we will also feature two additional shows featuring different styles of live music.
“Between Reggae on West Beach and these additional musical offerings, there will be six shows throughout the summer of 2019.”
Reggae on West Beach is an effective combination of arts, placemaking and civic engagement, which has proven to be hugely popular. In 2018, there were four shows — each a must-attend event that brought renewed attention to the city’s municipal beaches.
Each edition helped reactivate an area of the city which had fallen somewhat fallow. On a Reggae on West Beach afternoon, those beaches enjoyed a surge of visitors who patronized food trucks and businesses in the area.
It’s just one example of the power arts and culture play in empowering a city neighborhood. An example the Arts and Culture Plan will seek to replicate throughout New Bedford as we enter 2019.
Barr Klarman and Creative Commonwealth
When John Vasconcellos became president of the Community Foundation of Southeastern Massachusetts, he said he recognized that arts and culture was playing a large role in achieving some critical social and economic goals. Accordingly, he sought out and attained new funding to ensure that effort remains vibrant and is able to sustain itself and grow.
The result was a partnership between the Community Foundation and the Barr Foundation out of Boston to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in the region’s art and culture economy through grants to artists and non-profit organizations.
The investment isn’t simply a give-away. The strategic goal of the largesse is to foster individual and institutional development to create a capacity-building environment for the arts on the South Coast and — importantly — encourage private investment.
The partnership is called Creative Commonwealth — and in September 2018, it awarded $187,500 during its first phase of implementation, following the drafting of its own arts plan not only for the City of New Bedford, but the entire region.
Shortly after, the Barr-Klarman Massachusetts Arts Initiative also announced an additional investment in the region to strengthen critical arts and culture non-profit organizations, like the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, in the community, New Bedford Art Museum/Artowrks! and Zeiterion Performing Arts Center.
The combined effect of this funding is already being felt. Just before Christmas, the NBSO performed a free holiday concert at Kilburn Mill at Clarks Cove in the South End — thanks to Creative Commonwealth. It received both Creative Commonwealth and Barr-Klarman support.
Dave Prentiss, President and CEO, New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, says the Barr-Klarman investment will “help us develop and implement strategies in three areas: adaptive capacity, capitalization, and cultural competency.
“In addition to the financial support, we are also receiving extensive coaching and consulting services in these areas. The idea is to establish an organizational foundation which will allow us to be nimble, innovative and responsive to the whole community that we serve.
“There is a special emphasis on reaching new people and especially people who have not traditionally had access to classical music.”
In other words, it is New Bedford’s “Mozart in the Jungle” moment, for those familiar with the Amazon Prime series following the exploits of a New York City symphony pursuing these same goals.
Prentiss continues, “While the Kilburn Mill concert was not funded by the BK Initiative, it is an example of the kind of programming that we will do even more of as a result of the work we are doing under the BK Initiative.
“The real importance of the BK Initiative is that they are not funding us to do a few of these things and then call it quits. They are helping us change our organizational culture and capacity so that we can make reaching new audiences and being responsive to the whole community a permanent feature of what we do as a symphony orchestra.”
The Co-Creative Center, DATMA and SUPERFLAT
Scott Da Luz recently decided to leave the day job behind, and devote his full-time energy to being a professional photographer.
While he was building his reputation as a fine portrait photographer, the Westport resident mostly worked in Providence.
But when he made the leap, he landed in New Bedford — because the Co-Creative Center downtown on Union Street was there for him.
“Working at the Co-Creative Center allows me the chance to create and meet clients in a very professional environment. It’s very versatile for photography, allowing me to create different scenes for shoots.
“It’s great that it’s located in a business district, rather than a residential area — like working out of the house. Plus, you get a lot of exposure here — and connecting with other people is a huge benefit, both professionally and personally.”
The development of physical infrastructure in 2018 was matched by the establishment of new creative infrastructure in the city to help artists realize their vision.
Indeed, the Co-Creative Center, a multi-purpose cultural facility developed by WHALE at 137 Union Street, quickly became a much-needed creative hub after opening in May of last year — with a special event launching SUPERFLAT NB.
SUPERFLAT is the mural group which functions out of the center — with the goal of flattening barriers to the arts throughout the city via public art. It held its first mural festival last August, enlisting over 18 artists from near and far into their mission.
In an office upstairs from the center proper, DATMA — Design, Art, Technology Massachusetts — began pursuing its mission in 2018, too. That would be to become, “a non-collecting 21st century museum focusing on exhibitions, educational programming, and public outreach.”
This summer, it will bring Liquid Shard — a large-scale public installation by Patrick Shearn of Poetic Kinetics, based in Los Angeles — to Custom House Square Park downtown. It promises to be a one-of-a-kind public art event that comes with an international fan base, presented with a New Bedford theme: Summer Winds 2019 — a celebration of the city’s emerging leadership in wind energy.
It’s not a coincidence that all three organizations sprang to life around the same time. Indeed, each supports the other to one degree or another, even as much of what is written about above provide the financial and institutional framework by which they can thrive.
Many are discovering the infrastructure Da Luz found when he refocused his career — and they are discovering it in New Bedford. The Co-Creative space, and the SUPERFLAT and DATMA concepts, help position the city for an entirely new era in its arts and culture history.
Public and private investment is part of that new era. The solid foundation which brought the city to the point it reached in 2018 and is poised to run with in 2019 is another singular feature of the new possibilities powering the creative sector.
Building on city’s legacy
The year 2018 also saw milestone years for the creative partners which helped lay the groundwork over many years for much of what has now come to pass.
At the city’s core, the downtown placemaking project, AHA! New Bedford celebrated 20 years of every second Thursday of the month programming during 2018. The pioneering project brought the concept of placemaking to the city all those years ago and has maintained that effort ever since.
Now, it is bearing new fruit as arts and culture radiates out from this hub to embrace all parts of the city — even as it constantly renews itself at its center.
The New Bedford Whaling Museum reached out into the city and beached itself in the South End at Kilburn Mill at Clark Cove for the global headline-generating exhibition of “A Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ’Round the World.”
Following a careful restoration of the panorama by the museum, the inspired choice to display the canvas in the former textile mill brought cultural distinction not only to the city as a whole, but a very specific place and area which is in the process of entering the cultural arena in a big way.
Historically, that’s proven to be successful elsewhere.
Jeff Glassman purchased the Hatch Street Studios complex, consisting of the former mill buildings 88 and 90 Hatch Street in the city’s North End, in 2014.
Already renowned as a home for artists and artisans, Glassman doubled down on the business model by building out another floor of studio space and expanding into the 90 Hatch Street property.
“It’s been a good investment,” he says. “Both as a business, and as an investment in the community.”
Traditionally, the building complex held a once-a-year open studios event. But in 2018, it expanded that to every second Saturday of the month. The event features studio tours and other special programming on those days.
“We’re building a stronger community here,” Glassman notes. “There are things coming up for 2019 that will transform it even more. We’re opening doors and building communication at Hatch Street Studios and that is very fulfilling — both as a business and as a member of the community.”
Another example of refreshing a New Bedford legacy is the urban hip-hop celebration, 3rd EyE Open.
It continued its rebirth in 2018 as a downtown event that highlights the vibrancy of New Bedford’s diversity and youth in its entirety. Music, art and community once again combined to produce magic during the Open in August. (It, too, received Wicked Cool Places funding for 2019.)
In 2018, 3rd EyE Open partnered with SUPERFLAT, and each reinforced the other. Which brings us, finally, to an element of arts and culture which yields tangible social and economic benefits for the City of New Bedford, but which isn’t so easy to define.
The real world magic of creativity
The inspirational act of creative collaboration will always be something of a mystery even as it is assigned value in this city or anywhere. Though hard to quantify, you know it’s working well when you see it.
A key feature of the Arts and Culture Plan is fostering much more of that collaboration throughout the city.
As New Bedford forges forward with industry and purpose, it may be instructive to remember the simple power of the creative impulse.
Or, as Mayor Mitchell commented in a funky aside at the City Hall event announcing the city’s Arts and Culture plan… “We want to embrace being cool!”
In 2018, there was little doubt that New Bedford embraced being cool.
Steven Froias served on the city Arts & Culture Plan steering committee and blogs for the coworking facility, Groundwork! at NewBedfordCoworking.com. Email: StevenFroias@gmail.com.
Indeed, New Bedford arts in 2018 was characterized by renewed purpose and energy — as well as the arrival of a significant sum of money as a down payment on the future growth of culture in the city and for the region.
In addition to city money, drawn from a dedicated Arts, Culture and Tourism Fund, the Barr Foundation, in partnership with the Community Foundation of Southeastern Massachusetts, and Barr-Klarman Massachusetts Arts Initiative each announced huge investments in New Bedford and on SouthCoast.
Combined with other collaborative ventures like the Co-Creative Center, DATMA (Design, Art, Technology Massachusetts) and SUPERFLAT NB — all arriving onto the scene in 2018 — the year represents a watershed moment for the arts in New Bedford.
The impact will be felt in 2019 and long afterward. It will leave its mark on city neighborhoods, its youth — and creative entrepreneurship moving forward.
It is for that reason we choose the New Bedford Arts Community as the Southcoast Business Persons of the Year.
Unpacking it all provides a glimpse into that future — and a roadmap for what to expect during the year ahead. In this story, we’ll look at some of the big developments of the last year and the role each will play into the next.
During 2018, the arts and culture community enjoyed unprecedented attention for how it distinguishes New Bedford as a city. It was recognized for its profound contribution to bettering the quality of urban life — and its large role as an economic driver for the entire region.
Indeed, New Bedford arts in 2018 was characterized by renewed purpose and energy — as well as the arrival of a significant sum of money as a down payment on the future growth of culture in the city and for the region.
In addition to city money, drawn from a dedicated Arts, Culture and Tourism Fund, the Barr Foundation, in partnership with the Community Foundation of Southeastern Massachusetts, and Barr-Klarman Massachusetts Arts Initiative each announced huge investments in New Bedford and on SouthCoast.
Combined with other collaborative ventures like the Co-Creative Center, DATMA (Design, Art, Technology Massachusetts) and SUPERFLAT NB — all arriving onto the scene in 2018 — the year represents a watershed moment for the arts in New Bedford.
The impact will be felt in 2019 and long afterward. It will leave its mark on city neighborhoods, its youth — and creative entrepreneurship moving forward.
It is for that reason we choose the New Bedford Arts Community as the Southcoast Business Persons of the Year.
Unpacking it all provides a glimpse into that future — and a roadmap for what to expect during the year ahead. In this story, we’ll look at some of the big developments of the last year and the role each will play into the next.
The New Bedford Arts & Culture Plan
The first of its kind for the city, the plan presented to the public on Dec. 18 was impressive in its reach and scope.
Drafted throughout the year, the planners conducted 50 one-on-one interviews, held five focus group meetings and four public meetings. They surveyed members of the public as well as local artists, and obtained comments on message boards placed throughout the city. The plan involved the hands-on management of personnel from City Hall, the consulting firm Webb Management Services of New York City and the New Bedford Economic Development Council.
The NBEDC, through Creative Strategist Margo Saulnier, will now oversee the implementation phase. That begins as 2019 dawns with the convening of a Creative Consortium of leaders nominated to serve by fellow artists and arts leaders.
The consortium will immediately form into three task forces: Public Art + Facilities; Placemaking + Community; and Fundraising + Distribution.
In all, the plan contains over 80 action items, large and small. Some of the highlights include the launching of the Wicked Cool Places competitive grant program; the establishment of cultural districts in the South and North ends of the city; and the creation of a city-wide public art policy.
To get the ball rolling, initial Wicked Cool Places grants were announced when the plan was presented at City Hall. The 12 recipients represent the goals of the plan as a whole.
Brooke Baptiste, the founder and organizer of the popular “Reggae on West Beach” summer music series in the South End, saw her work awarded one of those grants. She explains what that means not only to keep the music playing, but to hear even more of it in 2019.
“Knowing that I’m a grant recipient is a huge help to Reggae On West Beach in order to keep the event free and accessible to all,” she said.
“For the last show of the season in August (2019), Reggae On West Beach will feature a live reggae band. Large bands require more sound tech — which always equals more money.
“In collaboration with the City of New Bedford, we will also feature two additional shows featuring different styles of live music.
“Between Reggae on West Beach and these additional musical offerings, there will be six shows throughout the summer of 2019.”
Reggae on West Beach is an effective combination of arts, placemaking and civic engagement, which has proven to be hugely popular. In 2018, there were four shows — each a must-attend event that brought renewed attention to the city’s municipal beaches.
Each edition helped reactivate an area of the city which had fallen somewhat fallow. On a Reggae on West Beach afternoon, those beaches enjoyed a surge of visitors who patronized food trucks and businesses in the area.
It’s just one example of the power arts and culture play in empowering a city neighborhood. An example the Arts and Culture Plan will seek to replicate throughout New Bedford as we enter 2019.
Barr Klarman and Creative Commonwealth
When John Vasconcellos became president of the Community Foundation of Southeastern Massachusetts, he said he recognized that arts and culture was playing a large role in achieving some critical social and economic goals. Accordingly, he sought out and attained new funding to ensure that effort remains vibrant and is able to sustain itself and grow.
The result was a partnership between the Community Foundation and the Barr Foundation out of Boston to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in the region’s art and culture economy through grants to artists and non-profit organizations.
The investment isn’t simply a give-away. The strategic goal of the largesse is to foster individual and institutional development to create a capacity-building environment for the arts on the South Coast and — importantly — encourage private investment.
The partnership is called Creative Commonwealth — and in September 2018, it awarded $187,500 during its first phase of implementation, following the drafting of its own arts plan not only for the City of New Bedford, but the entire region.
Shortly after, the Barr-Klarman Massachusetts Arts Initiative also announced an additional investment in the region to strengthen critical arts and culture non-profit organizations, like the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, in the community, New Bedford Art Museum/Artowrks! and Zeiterion Performing Arts Center.
The combined effect of this funding is already being felt. Just before Christmas, the NBSO performed a free holiday concert at Kilburn Mill at Clarks Cove in the South End — thanks to Creative Commonwealth. It received both Creative Commonwealth and Barr-Klarman support.
Dave Prentiss, President and CEO, New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, says the Barr-Klarman investment will “help us develop and implement strategies in three areas: adaptive capacity, capitalization, and cultural competency.
“In addition to the financial support, we are also receiving extensive coaching and consulting services in these areas. The idea is to establish an organizational foundation which will allow us to be nimble, innovative and responsive to the whole community that we serve.
“There is a special emphasis on reaching new people and especially people who have not traditionally had access to classical music.”
In other words, it is New Bedford’s “Mozart in the Jungle” moment, for those familiar with the Amazon Prime series following the exploits of a New York City symphony pursuing these same goals.
Prentiss continues, “While the Kilburn Mill concert was not funded by the BK Initiative, it is an example of the kind of programming that we will do even more of as a result of the work we are doing under the BK Initiative.
“The real importance of the BK Initiative is that they are not funding us to do a few of these things and then call it quits. They are helping us change our organizational culture and capacity so that we can make reaching new audiences and being responsive to the whole community a permanent feature of what we do as a symphony orchestra.”
The Co-Creative Center, DATMA and SUPERFLAT
Scott Da Luz recently decided to leave the day job behind, and devote his full-time energy to being a professional photographer.
While he was building his reputation as a fine portrait photographer, the Westport resident mostly worked in Providence.
But when he made the leap, he landed in New Bedford — because the Co-Creative Center downtown on Union Street was there for him.
“Working at the Co-Creative Center allows me the chance to create and meet clients in a very professional environment. It’s very versatile for photography, allowing me to create different scenes for shoots.
“It’s great that it’s located in a business district, rather than a residential area — like working out of the house. Plus, you get a lot of exposure here — and connecting with other people is a huge benefit, both professionally and personally.”
The development of physical infrastructure in 2018 was matched by the establishment of new creative infrastructure in the city to help artists realize their vision.
Indeed, the Co-Creative Center, a multi-purpose cultural facility developed by WHALE at 137 Union Street, quickly became a much-needed creative hub after opening in May of last year — with a special event launching SUPERFLAT NB.
SUPERFLAT is the mural group which functions out of the center — with the goal of flattening barriers to the arts throughout the city via public art. It held its first mural festival last August, enlisting over 18 artists from near and far into their mission.
In an office upstairs from the center proper, DATMA — Design, Art, Technology Massachusetts — began pursuing its mission in 2018, too. That would be to become, “a non-collecting 21st century museum focusing on exhibitions, educational programming, and public outreach.”
This summer, it will bring Liquid Shard — a large-scale public installation by Patrick Shearn of Poetic Kinetics, based in Los Angeles — to Custom House Square Park downtown. It promises to be a one-of-a-kind public art event that comes with an international fan base, presented with a New Bedford theme: Summer Winds 2019 — a celebration of the city’s emerging leadership in wind energy.
It’s not a coincidence that all three organizations sprang to life around the same time. Indeed, each supports the other to one degree or another, even as much of what is written about above provide the financial and institutional framework by which they can thrive.
Many are discovering the infrastructure Da Luz found when he refocused his career — and they are discovering it in New Bedford. The Co-Creative space, and the SUPERFLAT and DATMA concepts, help position the city for an entirely new era in its arts and culture history.
Public and private investment is part of that new era. The solid foundation which brought the city to the point it reached in 2018 and is poised to run with in 2019 is another singular feature of the new possibilities powering the creative sector.
Building on city’s legacy
The year 2018 also saw milestone years for the creative partners which helped lay the groundwork over many years for much of what has now come to pass.
At the city’s core, the downtown placemaking project, AHA! New Bedford celebrated 20 years of every second Thursday of the month programming during 2018. The pioneering project brought the concept of placemaking to the city all those years ago and has maintained that effort ever since.
Now, it is bearing new fruit as arts and culture radiates out from this hub to embrace all parts of the city — even as it constantly renews itself at its center.
The New Bedford Whaling Museum reached out into the city and beached itself in the South End at Kilburn Mill at Clark Cove for the global headline-generating exhibition of “A Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ’Round the World.”
Following a careful restoration of the panorama by the museum, the inspired choice to display the canvas in the former textile mill brought cultural distinction not only to the city as a whole, but a very specific place and area which is in the process of entering the cultural arena in a big way.
Historically, that’s proven to be successful elsewhere.
Jeff Glassman purchased the Hatch Street Studios complex, consisting of the former mill buildings 88 and 90 Hatch Street in the city’s North End, in 2014.
Already renowned as a home for artists and artisans, Glassman doubled down on the business model by building out another floor of studio space and expanding into the 90 Hatch Street property.
“It’s been a good investment,” he says. “Both as a business, and as an investment in the community.”
Traditionally, the building complex held a once-a-year open studios event. But in 2018, it expanded that to every second Saturday of the month. The event features studio tours and other special programming on those days.
“We’re building a stronger community here,” Glassman notes. “There are things coming up for 2019 that will transform it even more. We’re opening doors and building communication at Hatch Street Studios and that is very fulfilling — both as a business and as a member of the community.”
Another example of refreshing a New Bedford legacy is the urban hip-hop celebration, 3rd EyE Open.
It continued its rebirth in 2018 as a downtown event that highlights the vibrancy of New Bedford’s diversity and youth in its entirety. Music, art and community once again combined to produce magic during the Open in August. (It, too, received Wicked Cool Places funding for 2019.)
In 2018, 3rd EyE Open partnered with SUPERFLAT, and each reinforced the other. Which brings us, finally, to an element of arts and culture which yields tangible social and economic benefits for the City of New Bedford, but which isn’t so easy to define.
The real world magic of creativity
The inspirational act of creative collaboration will always be something of a mystery even as it is assigned value in this city or anywhere. Though hard to quantify, you know it’s working well when you see it.
A key feature of the Arts and Culture Plan is fostering much more of that collaboration throughout the city.
As New Bedford forges forward with industry and purpose, it may be instructive to remember the simple power of the creative impulse.
Or, as Mayor Mitchell commented in a funky aside at the City Hall event announcing the city’s Arts and Culture plan… “We want to embrace being cool!”
In 2018, there was little doubt that New Bedford embraced being cool.
Steven Froias served on the city Arts & Culture Plan steering committee and blogs for the coworking facility, Groundwork! at NewBedfordCoworking.com. Email: StevenFroias@gmail.com.
