Emotional Support Trees is a celebration of our current moment coming out of the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic. The project renovates the Nuestra Mesa outdoor bistro tables we created while socially distancing in 2020 into an exploration of deep collaboration two years into the collective experience of a pandemic.

Together, we created the concept of “Emotional Support Trees” as an offering to what the Chelsea community needs most: care and support. Together, we painted nine table-top murals to showcase the collectivity of both experience and creation.

project Emotional Support Trees at Chelsea Square Fountain

year 2022

client City of Chelsea MA

location Central Fountain, Chelsea Square

partners research: Amanda Arsenault; artists: Max Pro, Aliyah Saldana-Oswald, Jasmine Velasquez; poets: Monterey Rojas, Rosalinda Rojas

type Street furniture + murals

size (9) 32” diameter tables

roots Nuestra Mesa, 2020

research Book List, courtesy of research partner Amanda Arsenault

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For their community compost program, the City of Boston engaged artists to enhance compost bins in order to draw users and discourage contamination.

Studioful’s contribution celebrates composting from concept to execution with “The Compostry: The Art of Composting.” Metal panels adorn the bin with cut-outs of hand-drawn compostable items. The by-products are then fashioned into a “crown” to frame the title of “The Compostry” so that, like compost itself, all elements are useful and used in the final product.

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project The Compostry, Community Compost Bin

year 2021 - 2022

occasion Public Space Invitational, Boston’s Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics

location Codman Square Branch, Boston Public Library

partners Azia Carle, drawings; Scott Lanes, metal fabrication

type Decorated and educational compost bin

size 8’6” x 5’6” x 2’8”

roots 2019 Compostry

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AgriCulture is a new growing and community gathering space located next to established Backyard Growers community gardens in a housing community of sixty-five households in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Through collaborative concept design over eight summer workshops, we created a welcoming site model where participants envision their ideal space, activities, and possibilities on this fertile plot of land.

project agriCulture: a growing + community gathering space

year 2021-2022

client Backyard Growers

location Willowood Gardens

partners Gloucester Housing Authority, Gloucester Chamber, Trellis Structures

type Architectural Design

size 100ft x 100ft site

roots n/a

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The Handy Canopy is a provisional oasis built for Four Corners, with community input and local tree limbs. We conducted workshops at Speak for the Trees, the Codman Square Library, and the Codman Square Farmers market to trace people’s hands onto metal that became shimmering foliage.

The sculpture represents the green spaces that might exist in the community. It is a reminder of the increasing need for trees in an ever changing climate. All are welcome to relax and reflect under the shade of these helpful hands.

project Handy Canopy

year 2022

client Four Corners Main Streets

location 157 Washington St Plaza

partners Azia Carle

type Sculpture

size 8ftx8ftx16ft tall

roots Coming Back Together, 2022

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Coming Back Together: an intimate gathering space is a colorful garden folly made up of tenderly wrapped tree stumps, limbs, and abstract foliage, that honors the artistry and embodied life values of Doris Prouty’s quilts into a space for whimsy, storytelling, and friends.

After its life on the Cape Ann Museum Green, the installation was gifted to AgriCulture: a new growing and gathering space down the road at Willowood Gardens, a Gloucester Housing Authority community.

project Coming Back Together: an intimate gathering space

year 2022

client Cape Ann Museum Green

location Cape Ann Museum Green, Willowood Gardens

partners Sika Foyer

type Interactive sculpture

size (9) 6-10ft high tree limbs in a 10ft diameter circle

roots Cross Pollination, Hula Shades

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Wellspring House has a 40 + year history of inspiring families, adults and young adults North of Boston to achieve employment and financial security through stable housing, education, job training, and career readiness. For their first in-person staff event since the Covid-19 pandemic, we used art- making as a catalyst for conversation and imagining the future of the organization. Through “Care Packages” we inquired:

How do I personally connect to the Wellspring mission?

What’s the problem we’re trying to fix? How would I fix it if money wasn’t an issue?

What is the ideal world you’re trying to create?

project Care Packages for Wellspring House

year 2022

client Wellspring House

location Wellspring House Atrium, Zoom background

partners Azia Carle, Maia Mattson

type Participatory art + Installation

size 6ft x 6ft

roots n/a

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In 2021, circles of marigolds and chalk art bring new life to Nuestra Mesa in celebration of Mother’s Day. Marigolds are the traditional flowers of mourning and celebration in the Dominican Republic tradition used for the Nuestra Mesa project in 2020.

Artists Amber Torres and Marianne Ramos created chalk art murals inspired by new life, flowers, and Mother’s Day. Max Pro wrote out poetry radiating out like the sun from Nuetras Palabras, a zine based on the Nuestra Mesa murals created with local teens by Amanda Arsenault.

project Mother’s Day Marigolds

year 2021

client City of Chelsea

location Chelsea Square Fountain

partners Max Pro, Marianne Ramos, Amber Torres, Amanda Arsenault

type Installation

size 30ft diameter fountain

roots Nuestra Mesa

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In 2019, Charlotte Forten Park was built as the result of the community-based process led by Studioful, with CBA Landscape Architects. In 2021, we collaborated on Creative Collective Imaginings to understand how the varied communities of Salem hope to memorialize Charlotte Forten in the park named in her honor.

Charlotte Forten is celebrated as the first Black woman graduate from Salem State University as well as the first Black female educator for Salem Public Schools. Charlotte was also a writer, poet, and lover of nature!

project Forten Memorial

year 2021

client City of Salem

location Charlotte Forten Park, Salem MA

partners Mel Isidor, Keshia DeLeon, Julie Barry - Public Art Planner

type Participatory Installation; Engagement Postcards

size 12ft x 6ft Panels

roots 289 Derby Placemaking

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Affirmative Art is an international art program that guides people to draw their aspirations and discover their future dreams. Over the course of three workshops, Studioful collaborated with Iliana Vidal to lead students in several Affirmative Art workshops tailored to the La Collaborativa youth program.

Students co-collaborate to they draw their dreams, photograph “Dream Portraits,” and translate the work onto banners that will be printed and displayed down Broadway, Chelsea’s main commercial street.

project AArt Chelsea

year 2021

client City of Chelsea

location Broadway, Chelsea MA

partners Iliana Vidal, La Colaborativa

type Streetpole Banners

size 12ft x 6ft Panels

roots 289 Derby Placemaking

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"Compostry: art in the scraps of time" serves as a way to educate and build a coalition for composting policy in Salem MA. Compostry is a fun, sculptural project that uses food scraps to create small-scale individual art that can be aggregated to create a large-scale collective installation. The process and the outcome serve as a symbol for how we aim to tackle food waste in the city.

The next step for Compostry - and we hope you can help us! - is the Compostry Labyrinth!

On September 21, 2019, the Salem Food Policy Council will host it's first festival, Food for Thought in at Palmer Cove Park in the Point neighborhood to create dialogue about food issues in the city, including access and waste.

Compostry is a participatory art project to engage people of all ages about the what, why, and how of composting.

For the Food for Thought festival, we plan a large scale, 20foot wide labyrinth created in Palmer Cove park by participants, using food scraps donated by local restaurants interested in reducing waste and composting. People will be able to not only help create the Compostry Labyrinth, but also to walk through it!

We hope the Compostry Labyrinth - as a fully compostable public art project - will help inspire individuals but also coalesce people together to make real composting policy for the city.

We tested the project at this year's Salem Arts Festival. We created a "Compostry Path" that people walked through on the way to write "Why Compost?" on the communal canvas.

We also handed out information about the current city programs. Presently, in a city of 42,000, only about 1,100 people use a pick-up composting service. About a dozen restaurants are making individual efforts to compost, but nothing is yet cohesive.

TIDAL SHIFT

Tidal Shift is a participatory community art project grounded in our shared environment. Through intimate workshops and large scale art installations, we communicate the negative impact of plastic bag pollution in our oceans.

Visit: tidalshift.org

Tidal Shift was developed in the Salem MA community by Studioful Design in collaboration with Salem Sound Coastwatch, Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Programs and community participants for the 2017 Salem Arts Festival.

We aim to support public communication and education as communities rally to adopt positive legislation to reduce single-use plastic bags.

• We travel to different communities and run community art campaigns in specific locations, depending on community needs.

• Tidal Shift supports new plastic bag reduction legislation on the North Shore, and aims to illustrate the impact of plastic bags on our local marine life.

• We believe the arts have the power to raise awareness, start important dialogues, and encourage action.

PLACEMAKING COMMUNITY ART

The Community Table for People and Pollinators is a large scale table on Artists’ Row that encourages people to stop, sit, eat, learn about native plants, make friends, and discover art in public space. The table represents an imagined landscape of creativity with a collage of artful and natural materials form local artists and surrounding natural areas aimed to nourish local communities. The integration of native plant gardens for pollinators aims to expand the notion of community to that of the smallest endangered creatures in our ecosystem. 

The treatment of the table is inspired by the Artists’ Row tenants' materials, natural materials found on the forest floor, and pollinators, creating a collage ecosystem where people can explore, learn, eat, enjoy, and converse.

The budget focused on providing small stipends for local artists and designers, rather than spending funding on materials. We therefore used free pallets and a mixed media tabletop mosaic with found and donated materials.

Native perennial plants for pollinators add green space in an imaginative way to the Community Table and attract butterflies and bees to catalyze curiosity and conversation on the subject of pollinators.

Initially, the Community Table would only be accessible during Artists’ Row hours for fear of damage and undesirable activities. In a later meeting with the Public Art Commission, it was determined that a more permanent fixture would better create a destination space, a stated project goal and worth the risk.

Location: Artists' Row, Salem MA

Timeline: July - September, 2017

Project Type: Community Art

Client: City of Salem

Collaborators: City of Salem Arts&Culture Planner, Thrive Design, Beverly Bees, local artist interns

PLACEMAKING NEIGHBORHOOD DESIGN

The project at 289 Derby was a multi-week effort to engage locals in the hands-on design of a new waterfront park. Studioful led the placemaking strategy with support from Creative Collective (formerly Creative Salem) and in collaboration with CBA Landscape Architects.

We showcased possible activities and forms and stimulated people's imaginations with Community Design Events on the empty lot: locals gathered and helped design a new public space - together. Over five weeks, events engaged the community to Dance & Design, Play & Plan, Eat & Imagine, and more leading to a unified choice for a new waterfront park scheme.

Location: 289 Derby St, Salem MA

Timeline: May - July, 2017

Project Type: Placemaking, Neighborhood Design

Client: City of Salem

Collaborators: Creative Collective, CBA Landscape Architects, City of Salem, and dozens of local organizations, businesses, nonprofits, artists, and people of all ages

PLACEMAKING COMMUNITY ART

The purpose of The Public Art Salon is to create beautiful, participatory, resident-led projects on an ongoing basis to inspire local communities.

Practically, we make friends and create projects in public space that connect local people and places.

People come together to design and build community-driven projects, cultivate local talent, and build productive relationships.