You’re invited! We are so excited to announce the Let Our Rivers Flow mural dedication on Saturday, June 15 from 11am-12pm. The event will be held on the “green” at Hanover Crossing, just outside of the J Crew Factory store. We will have family-friendly games, prizes and treats for all. Click here to register.
The goal of NSRWA’s Let Our Rivers Flow campaign is to raise public awareness around the impacts that dams and other barriers have on our rivers, and our work to restore the habitats that support river herring and other migratory fish. The mural depicts the North River and its location at Hanover Crossing highlights the removal of three dams and two weirs along the Third Herring Brook, which is just behind the mall.
This project has been in the works for six years and NSRWA’s collaboration with local artists Sally Dean Mello, Cathy McCarthy and Kris Brennen, along with the staff at Hanover Crossing, has finally brought it to life.
It has been truly inspiring to watch the mural unfold over the last few months. Sally and Cathy are well-established artists but they brought so much more than artistic talent to this project. They have been incredibly welcoming, opening their studio to members of the community to be a part of this project with no art experience required. Every week brought a new slew of animals or colors or flowers to the mural and with this came new dimension, movement and meaning.
Sally’s mantra has been “this is so fun” and, for her, collaboration has been the big takeaway. Sally and Cathy worked together to design and create this mural, a process that was new to both of them, but proved to be a huge success. Sally’s experience as an art educator was evident in the ease and patience she displayed during the community paint days. Sally’s enthusiasm and joy throughout the process has been palpable.
For Cathy, every day brought realizations of the beauty of the South Shore from the skies to the flowing rivers and all of the little creatures that inhabit this space. Working on the mural felt like “living in a beautiful space of imagination and true inspiration”.
The mural will be complemented by historical signage detailing the Third Herring Brook Restoration and removal of the Peterson Pond Dam, as well as benches created from portions of the old mill grindstone that were salvaged from that site. Talk about collaboration! During an early meeting with the mural artists, Ed Callahan from Hanover Crossing mentioned the idea of turning the salvaged millstones into benches and Sally immediately made the connection to her colleague and friend, Kris Brennen. Kris found new life in these old stones and these benches will provide a place for visitors to rest and feel the history of our rivers.
We hope you can join us on June 15 to celebrate this unique, multimodal installation. We feel so lucky to have been a part of this process with this amazing team.
A very big thank you to Mass Cultural Council and Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration and Sign Design. This project would not have been possible without their support
