Berwick Art Association Plans Downtown Facelift

BERWICK - Residents of Berwick can expect a change of scenery in their downtown area, courtesy of the Berwick Art Association (BAA). The group has obtained permission to paint a mural on the outside walls of Prime Tanning, adjacent from town hall, and plans to submit a draft for final approval early next week.

Obtaining permission from the legal representatives of Prime Tanning was no easy feat, said BAA co-chair Justin Bloom. According to Bloom, the group made calls daily to Prime Tanning representatives for over a month before they finally reached an agreement that would allow the association to paint a mural.

Part of that agreement was the BAA could claim no ownership to the artwork on the wall. This would mean that if and when Prime Tanning is demolished, the group could not take legal action to protect their artwork.

However, the group has already found a “state of the art” method in preserving their work through one or more companies that create digital time montages using GPS and cell phones. The way it works is a company, like Circa, creates an app for a cell phones that enables the phone to access photos of what a certain location looked like in different stages of history, simply by pointing the cell phone at the desired location.

The group plans on documenting the progress of constructing the mural and uploading the photos to Circa. In this way, the Berwick mural will be immortalized in history archives.

“Even if we can only put something up for two years before it is torn down, it’s better than nothing at all,” said Bloom.

The group of artists plan to create a rural scene of rivers, trees and farmlands that runs at least 500 feet along the Prime Tanning wall. Within the rural scene there will be designated shaded areas, outlined by simplistic shapes, that will be made available to the members of the public that would like to contribute to the mural. The end result will resemble a quilt-like design.

“We want to let anyone that wants to participate, including youth groups, have access to the wall,” said Bloom.

Although Bloom said town officials do not oppose the idea, they are not in any position to fund the project. Therefore, the financial obligation would fall solely on the BAA.

BAA founder Erin Duquette, said she has already made contact with several painting businesses that are willing to donate services and materials to prepare the wall for the mural. These materials and services would be given in exchange for a small company logo incorporated onto the wall.

Final approval of the project is pending design acceptance from Prime Tanning’s legal representatives. Bloom said that he also plans on presenting a draft to town officials to make sure they do not oppose to the contents of the design. 

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Could you see something like this in downtown Berwick?