Arts in the Garden

The very popular Arts in the Garden series is back again this summer! Enjoy the pleasure of a summer evening during this weekly series of participatory arts workshops held outdoors in the Mary Susan Gawlak Memorial Garden at the Green Street Arts Center. Arts in the Garden offers FREE, fun activities for children, adults and families, co-sponsored by the North End Action Team and the Green Street Arts Center. Light refreshments will be served. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult. In the event of rain, Arts in the Garden will be moved indoors.

Schedule of events is as follows:

July 11 Scarecrow Building with David Brown

July 18 Environmental Sculpture with Natasha Miles

July 25 African Masks and Music with Lance Kamau James

August 1 Found-Object Printmaking with Scott Kessel

August 8 “Charming” Jewelry Making with Jackie Bright

Arts in the Garden is a participatory arts program for children and families that has taken place in the summer months since 2001. The workshops have included music, visual arts and dance, and have introduced a diverse range of artistic styles to residents of the North End and the city at-large. African dance, drumming, capoeira, and instrument-making ere only some of the arts events that have taken place in the North End's own oasis of beauty, the Ferry Street Community Garden. Due to the North End Housing Revitalization Project, the Ferry Street Community Garden has been relocated from its original lot, and during this transition, the Arts in the Garden series has been held in the Mary Susan Gawlak Memorial Garden at the Green Street Arts Center. This project is a partnership with the Green Street Arts Center, who collaborated with NEAT and its resident leaders to organize the workshops.

NEAT is committed to a grassroots approach to neighborhood revitalization. Engaging children and families in artistic opportunities and experiences is an important means to develop the skills and experience of North End children while, at the same time, raising the awareness and profile of a neighborhood.

The goals of the series are:

1) To foster artistic and cultural awareness in North End children and residents, 2) To teach and explore the history, traditions, and diversity of the past and future residents of the North End, and 3) to use art as a vehicle to build community identity and stability in the North End, which has been targeted by the City of Middletown as a priority area for revitalization.

Arts performance and education serves as a grassroots community-building tool to develop the skills and interests of children within their environment. The project is important because children living within the low-income North End are known to have less exposure to arts and cultural opportunities than their middle class peers. The described project allows diverse forms of art and culture to become accessible to a population that has a distinct lack of transportation, communication, education, and resources.

NEAT's collaboration with Wesleyan University's Green Street Arts Center is seen as a critical link to North End children, families, and the neighborhood. The Arts in the Garden summer series is an arts project for and about the North End and its future as a healthy neighborhood within the City of Middletown.

All programs are free, open to the public, and have neighborhood involvement in all parts of planning and execution.

The series has been funded by the North End Action Team, Wesleyan University and the Green Street Arts Center, The Middletown Commission on the Arts, the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Middletown Prevention Council, and through private donations.


NEAT is a non-profit (501©(3) organization and receives financial and in kind support from Liberty Bank Foundation, the American Savings Foundation, Middlesex County Community Foundation, the City of Middletown (CDBG), the Haymarket People's Fund, the Community Health Center, Wesleyan University, Citizens Bank, and private donations.

North End Action Team, 33 Ferry St. , Middletown, CT 06457 (860)346-4845, fax: (860)704-8533, email: neat@neatmiddletown.org