Artists set out to revitalize downtown Laconia

LACONIA — Throughout downtown, benches and flowerpots are sprouting bright colors, displaying details of flowers. This is not an unauthorized phenomenon. The Laconia Parks and Recreation Department, in collaboration with resident Amanda Falwell, is spearheading the Enriching Laconia Project, which aims to revitalize the city with art. Amy Lovisek, director of recreation and facilities, is excited about the endeavor.

“It's beneficial to the city to make things pop and to keep things vibrant and get people talking about the downtown and wanting to go down and see it themselves,” Lovisek said.

Falwell is the sole organizer of the project and does the sketching and flowers herself. But for anyone who wants to help, she has stencils on hand and all the supplies needed to paint, as well as paper to practice. While she has done a lot of work on her own, she often recruits others who express an interest in helping.

“I actually had one of the homeless women volunteer to help for about an hour or so and then I've also had another volunteer help an hour or so,” Falwell said. “I just recruit who is available at the time and if they want to paint and help, then they're more than happy to.”

Falwell works full time as an Amazon recruiter, but has a history with art. She has been painting since she was a kid, and her parents encouraged her artistic side by signing her up for ceramic painting classes. She eventually went on to study at the University of New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Institute of Art and the Harvard Extension School for Visual Arts. Falwell was looking for a way to improve her community, and with her love for art, she thought this project would be a great way to do it. She took inspiration from the Meredith art walk, in which she also took part.

“There’s a lot of opportunity here in Laconia, and now that I've been here for a while, I want to activate that. And it takes the person to flick that domino and get it going,” she said. “Who's better than me to just go out, create it, and see if we can make something of it?”

The project was proposed to city council on May 11, and approved by Parks & Recreation on May 15. Ward 4 Councilor Mark Haynes particularly likes this project.

“Anything we can do to enhance the beauty, and anything that we can do to draw people, not only downtown, but to our parks, is a great asset to the city,” Haynes said.

Haynes has noticed the paintings downtown since the project was approved.

“The minute you turn the corner, whether you go straight downtown or Beacon Street East, they stand right out, and they look great,” he said.

Before council approved the project, they asked that the project be spread around the city, including Lakeport and Weirs Beach, where paintings have already been finished.

Another aspect includes bringing sculptures to the city. Also taking inspiration from the Meredith art walk, sculptures will be popping up around the city to add character. Falwell and Lovisek have been searching for sculptors to loan their work. Falwell is an organizer for the Granite State Burners, a regional Burning Man community, and has looked within that group, while also searching for artists more broadly.

Sculptor Asia Scudder of Exeter is one of the artists lending her work to the project. Scudder specializes in steel and aluminum and metal wire work, and started as a wildlife illustrator. But for much of her life, Scudder was a landscaper, and would often see sculptures in gardens she felt didn’t fit in. Because of this, she became interested in outdoor sculptures.

“I have a really strong belief that sculpture should definitely blend with the environment,” Scudder said. “I always felt like some of the art that was in people's yards didn't complement their gardens.”

And while she loved wire work, she wanted a material that could withstand the outdoor elements, but still have the same shape and quality.

“People were wanting to have the pieces out in their gardens, but the wire was much too delicate and fragile for outdoor environments,” she said. “I ended up finding a process that allowed me to have bulkier, heavier pieces that still have the whimsy.”

Scudder has three pieces that will be displayed in Laconia.

Another artist who will be displaying work is Keith Trexler, an electrical engineer based in Milford. Trexler lives on an abandoned granite quarry, which he says is the place where columns of the U.S. Treasury Building in Washington came from. Trexler bought it in 1989. He noticed all the abandoned granite on his property, and in 2000, decided to take advantage of the resource to create sculptures.

“I'm self-taught, I don't have any artistic training, so I'm not a professional artist,” Trexler said. “But I have a lot of stone on my property that the quarrymen cut out of the bedrock 100 years ago and then discarded for whatever reason. So all of my sculptures are basically using this reclaimed granite from the quarrymen and repurposing it as art.”

Trexler has an organic way of creating his pieces. The granite he finds is often not perfectly shaped, and he uses that to guide his thought process.

“In some cases when I'm carving something, there's something very specific I want to do and I look for a stone that will work,” he said. “But most of the time I find a stone, I look at the stone, and I kind of tease out of the stone what's in there. The stone suggests to me what it should be.”

Trexler is displaying two pieces.

The search for sculptors is still ongoing and anyone interested in displaying their work should contact Lovisek at 603-524-5046 or parks@laconianh.gov.

Falwell is also continuing to work on this project and aims to expand it to include murals as well as any additions to the WOW Trail. Falwell is excited about the work that is already done and looks forward to what is to come.

“There's a sense of pride in that I'm making a beautiful impact downtown,” she said. “You can see where I haven't painted and do the before and after visually to yourself. And you're like, ‘Yes, this was a great idea.’ And I want to keep going, I want to do more murals downtown, I want to do bigger and better things.”