MAPC Artist-in-Residence Carolyn Lewenberg

Image shows portable shoeshine cart with watercolor shoeprint paintings hanging on it
MAPC Artist-in-Residence Carolyn Lewenberg

MAPC ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM

Carolyn Lewenberg

Carolyn Lewenberg is a visual artist with strengths in collaborating with government and non-profit entities and engaging at-risk youth in environmentally-responsive sculptural art-making.

Lewenberg was the MAPC Artist-in-Residence from April 2017 to November 2018. Since her time as the inaugural MAPC artist-in-residence, she has expanded her creative placemaking practice and her work with municipal partners.

Recent Work with MAPC

Jon Norton Community Trail Rain Garden (2019)

Lewenberg worked with MAPC, the City of Everett Department of Public Works, National Grid, and 8th-grade students from Madeline English School to create a rain garden on the Northern Strand Community Trail. The climate resilience project ties in with the City’s larger efforts to restore ecology and public access to the landscape.

Climate Perspectives:
Schools of Thought on Climate Change (2019)

Lewenberg worked with MAPC's public health and economic development departments to create an art installation to help share the findings from a series of focus groups on how climate change affects different industries.

Lewenberg and Nia Holley crafted four separate groups of fish using gloves and materials from each industry: for example, burlap for farmers, gauze and scrubs for home health care workers, fishing nets for those in the fishing industry, and orange safety netting for construction workers.

HUBweek Installation (October 2018)

Lewenberg worked with members of the arts & culture, data services, and housing teams to transform a shipping container into an interactive exhibit on the housing crisis.

Signature Projects

Arts & Planning Discussion Series

Lewenberg launched MAPC's Arts and Culture Discussion Series in 2017. The series focuses on innovative approaches to planning challenges that emerge from artist leadership.

The Ripple Effect (Everett Earthworks)

Everett Earthworks creates a new space for the community to grow food and celebrate artistic expression. Lewenberg designed the garden, as well as its sculptural centerpiece.

Sole of Rockland

Lewenberg led the Sole of Rockland campaign, a community-based public art project highlighting Rockland's lively, creative spirit and captures this spirit through portraits of the towns many "soles." As an outgrowth of REIMAGINE ROCKLAND, the project demonstrates the potential for art to bring the community together and enliven Union Street.

Office Art

Lewenberg was tasked with revamping MAPC's office art, and chose to work with young, emerging artists to to commission pieces reflecting MAPC's values. Each art piece displayed in MAPC's conference rooms coordinates with one of MAPC’s core priorities: climate, regional collaboration and municipal efficiency, equity, and smart growth.

Other Creative Initiatives

Artist-in-Residence Carolyn Lewenberg writes "Albion Arts Launch" in chalk on the sidewalk

Albion Arts Corridor Strategy

Lewenberg worked with the economic development team to develop creative strategies for bringing people into the Wakefield Albion Arts Corridor Launch Event. She created a collage to add some flair to the release of the report and worked with high school students to make chalk drawings on tar paper outside the library to draw people in.

A photo collage shows a gazebo, clootie tree, bridge with musical instruments, wayfinding signs, benches shaped like animals, and stained-glass-style hopscotch board.

Natick Center Creative Placemaking

Lewenberg helped lead creative placemaking workshops for the Natick Center Creative Placemaking Project. She also helped modify a pop-up tent that MAPC brought to multiple Natick events to spread the word about a call for artists for Natick Center creative placemaking projects.

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Shannon Grant Basketball Tournament

Lewenberg developed an arts element to engage young people at the Shannon Grant Basketball Tournament, which promotes community cohesion by having teams of youth and police representing different cities and towns in the Metro Boston Area play together. She worked with youth artists to create and run a custom t-shirt table, with stencils and fabric pens.

Women look through viewfinders while an MAPC planner holds a suvey at a public event in Everett.

Everett Open Space and Recreation Plan

Lewenberg worked on creative community engagement as part of the Everett Open Space and Recreation Plan, helping to develop engaging and innovative arts programming as part of a pop-up for the Village Fest event. This included creating viewmasters to get people to participate in sharing their visual preferences and bringing in the Veronica Robles Cultural Center Elote Cart to provide corn to participants in the survey.

Large photos of various trail amenities can be seen through a giant gold frame.

Natick Senior-Friendly Trails

Lewenberg developed a creative placemaking project, using a gold frame and photos to create a spatial experience through which people could view possible trail amenities. She worked with artist Eva Van Aken to create the gold frame. The installation prompted conversations about what people wanted to see on a future trail network.

Annis Sengupta puts hand decorated leaves onto a tree made of branches.

Revere Vision Tree

As part of the Revere Open Space and Recreation Plan, Lewenberg helped plan and implement a sculptural creative community engagement project. She asked people to decorate leaf-shaped paper templates in response to the prompt “What does your perfect day in the park look like?” At the final public forum, MAPC unveiled a sculptural tree with these decorated leaves.