Volunteer Spotlight: Abby Kawola

 Written by Christine Diaz

 Abby Kawola made her mark on The Umbrella’s marketing efforts this summer. Starting with us as an intern in May, Abby quickly became a busy member of the marketing team. Majoring in English with a minor in Irish Studies at Boston College, Abby put her writing and communication skills to work for our Musketaquid Arts & Environment program.

Things have been buzzing around 40 Stow Street all summer. With over 50 workers on site every day, work continues on interior renovations as well as on the new building. The following photos show the progress to date with captions describing what you see. We are excited to get the artists back in the building in October, and then all construction complete in less than a year from now!

Our 2017-2018 Artist-in-Residence Elizabeth King currently has her culminating exhibition on view through September 10th at the Trinity Episcopal Church, 81 Elm Street, Concord, MA. While our gallery is under construction, we are pleased to partner with the church to present this work in their beautiful gallery.

Written by Karen Carlson, Campus Director, Bay Path University- Concord MA

Noah Covell has been a dedicated volunteer at The Umbrella for the past 2 years. He has a passion for the arts and appreciates the skills and creativity that he sees in the many Umbrella artists that he interacts with while working at The Umbrella. Noah volunteers primarily on weekends and evenings by taking photographs of various events and you might have seen some of his photos in The Umbrella newsletter.

Supported by a 21st Century grant, Lowell Public Schools and Musketaquid Arts & Environment have teamed up to bring a summer art camp to Lowell students tuition-free.  The Greenhalge Elementary School program focuses on using natural and recycled materials to connect youth to nature and environmental themes. Projects this summer have included egg carton animals, animal tracks, dried flower gardens and nature houses.

Circumstance fostered Debra Rolfe’s passion for basket-making. As a young girl, she happened to attend a Bloomington, Indiana middle school with a special program that exposed students to the art of weaving. Debra wove her first basket through this program and never forgot the experience, forever remembering the joy she found in the weaving process. Years later, circumstance drew Debra to basket-making once more. As a volunteer crafts teacher at a Girl Scouts camp, Debra was asked to teach her campers how to weave a small basket.

If you happened to be walking through Concord Land Conservation Trust’s Newbury Land during the second week of July, you may have spotted a group of kids covered in mud, joyfully running barefoot through the field. These kids made up Musketaquid Arts & Environment’s first summer session of Ninjas in Nature, an outdoor education program that combines exposure to the natural environment with the introductory arts of the ancient ninja.

Umbrella Artists around town

The Umbrella Arts Gallery pops-up in Concord

Construction continues to move ahead smoothly. Most of the work is taking place in the rear of the building as the artist prepare to move out of the main building for the summer.

The top of this photo shows the newly formed foundation walls of Phase 1. The foreground shows the installation of rebar attached to steel coming out of the new footings. You can also see the new elevator pit in the center bottom of the photo, and just above that to the right, you can start to see the curve of what will be the new theater.