Symposium Chips Its Way to Community

Here's another team effort in Nashua that deserves recognition. The Nashua Sculptural Symposium 2010 launched a week ago. We have three sculptures (7 artists) underway as we blog, and their sculptures will be added to the 9 previous that grace Nashua.

The event is a fine example of a group reaching out and networking to get where they want to go. The Andres Institute, Brookine MA, has hosted an International Sculpture Symposium each year since 1999. Sculptors are selected from all over the world, and they come to the peaceful Andres Institute of Arts for three weeks to create an outdoor sculpture, to be installed anywhere they like on the Institute grounds.

Nashua and the Andres Institute began to partner on a Symposium in Nashua three years ago, and the effort is now a partnership among Andres, the City of Nashua, CityArtsNashua (an Arts umbrella group), and the Nashua Area Artist Association. They produce the Call for Proposals; determine the installation locations; arrange for housing, workspace, tools; do fundraising and publicity and create a jury to select the artists from among the proposals.

Roberta Woitkowski at work slicing granite at the Nashua Sculpture Symposium 2010.

The sculptors have "open hours" when they can be visited at work. I visited the team of Margaret Woitkowski, Roberta Woitkowski, Dan Tomolonis, and David St. Onge at their industrial worksite in the MillYard. Roberta and Margaret (photo left) have numerous ties to the Nashua community. This, too, is a networked effort. Roberta did the proposal and was busy sculpting. Her mother Margaret prepared a project display and guest book and is an excellent hostess for our visit. She even arranged for blue wrist bands with "Imagine" on them. Denny is the hands-on sculpture fabricator and David is the nuts-and-bolts solutions man.

What would it take to turn this good effort into a great community?