Artists Put West Haven On The Cultural Map

Samantha Violante, who is leading a public art group, and  Paul Iverson. Lucy Gellman Photos.

Growing up in West Haven, Samantha Violante didn’t see a lot of public art in her city. When she moved back, it seemed like there was even less. Now, she’s trying to bring a creative heartbeat to the place she calls home—and learning that she won’t have to do that work alone.

Saturday, Violante was one of dozens of artists, organizers, and elected officials at ArtsWestCT’s “Arts & Cultures Roundtable,” a networking forum and conversation from the budding West Haven based organization. Held inside West Haven High School at 1 Mcdonough Plz, the event drew over 100 attendees, from anthophiles and starry-eyed ceramicists to champions of public humanities and music in schools.

It doubled as the formal launch for ArtsWestCT, which has been active informally for the last 10 years. The group’s next organizing meeting is scheduled for March 16 at 5:15 p.m. at Picasso’s Parties.

“Each of you didn’t come here by accident, you’re here because you have something valuable to contribute,” Verge Arts Group Founder and ArtsWestCT member Elinor Slomba said at the top of the afternoon gathering, as artists set up stations with cardboard pop-up signs. “Although if you don’t exactly know why you’re here, that’s completely okay too. This is an emergent process.”    

West Haven Mayor Nancy Rossi and Elinor Slomba during a prize raffle drawing. 

The meeting comes as West Haven works toward plans for an arts center in the former Masonic Temple at 304 Center St. (more on that below), as well as a kite flying festival, art crawl, Memorial Day Parade, and Juneteenth ceremony this spring and summer. Before giving artists time to network, Slomba introduced a project mapping the town’s cultural assets, from small businesses and houses of worship to West Haven’s kite flying field at Savin Rock. Thus far, the map has amassed 225 items for a town of just over 55,500.

“Who here has learned something about another culture from their neighbors?” she asked. Dozens of hands went up across the room. Pulling up an image dotted with small, color-coded circles, Slomba pointed out small-batch apiaries, tiny theater companies, restaurants, dance studios, and a lone blacksmith. “There’s a lot to work with here.”

"What can people bring to this beautiful community?" added Lalani Perry, a member of the West Haven Economic Development Commission. "Let's learn more about what everyone has to offer."

Around the room, artists fanned out across stations or “guilds” dedicated to theater, visual and public arts, poetry, youth arts, cultural traditions, music and dance. It seemed that there was a guild for everything: stops for healthy aging, digital media, plants and tourism rounded out the bunch. When Nora Rodriguez, who runs healthy aging, gently told attendees that “our future selves will thank us,” it seemed that she was addressing every artist in the room.

At one end of a long table, Violante greeted attendees interested in learning more about public art in West Haven. At the other, artist Raheem Nelson did live sketching of the event, pausing every so often to introduce himself to people he hadn’t yet met. A few yards away, FUSE Theater CT Founder Laura Morton pitched people on a virtual presentation of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream meant to make Shakespeare more accessible to students. 

Artist Raheem Nelson.

Violante struck up a conversation with artist Paul Iverson, a West Haven painter whose work will be part of the city’s first “Art Crawl” on Campbell Avenue in May. Last year, the crawl grew out of a string of pop-ups that Violante organized at the Savin Rock Surf Shop. After years of wanting to turn West Haven into a creative hub, the collaboration with the shop marked a fortuitous meeting of the minds.

“It really matters to me that we have art in the community that I grew up in,” she said.

Violante grew up in West Haven in the 1970s and 1980s, when the city’s art scene was just a whisper. After leaving to study art, she moved around the U.S., with stints in San Francisco and Colorado that opened her eyes to how art can add to the vibrancy of a city. When she returned to West Haven in 2000—“sometimes life brings you back,” she said—the arts scene seemed somehow even more anemic. She started to wonder how she could help.

“I tried to do other things, but the timing didn’t ever seem to be right,” she said. She got a day job, and started a small business making natural beauty products. Then, in a moment of synchronicity, she linked up with the Savin Rock Surf Shop. Community members were hungry for the chance to connect with artists, she discovered. After a string of holiday pop-ups last year, she turned her attention toward the art crawl.

Artist Avé Rivera.

She said the crawl, which pairs artists and bars for a “walking art exhibition” on May 26, is part of a growing vision she has for the city’s art scene. In addition, she’d love to see a public art fair, citywide mural program, and a dedicated space for artists to sell and showcase their work. She pointed to the economic impact that arts events can have, particularly for a “cash-strapped city” like West Haven. 

“It would be great to have West Haven on the map,” she said.

At a table nearby, ceramic artist Avé Rivera invited artists to her make-to-sell table, designed for those who want to learn more about marketing and selling their own work. Raised in West Haven, Rivera fell in love with ceramics 11 years ago, when she was a student at Southern Connecticut State University. During and after college she “became a sponge,” soaking up as much knowledge on the craft as she could. When her pottery and ceramics started to sell seriously, she took the leap into running a small business. Now, she wants to pay it forward.

“I have a ‘rising tide lifts all boats’ mentality,” she said. “I’m really excited that this is happening here.”

She’s happy to help “because I know it can be really scary” to get started, she added. Until recently, Rivera worked multiple jobs to support her career as an artist, from teaching in the New Haven Public Schools to working as a studio assistant, color expert at a paint store, and pharmacy technician. Saturday, she’d come out to the event to both find and create community, particularly a make-to-sell meetup, with fellow West Haven artists.

Top: Rawling. Bottom: Zalika Akilah and Morgan Baskerville.

Girlfriends Zalika Akilah and Morgan Baskerville were two of several visitors who stopped at her table, chatting excitedly as they made their way through the sunlit space. Now based in New Haven’s Beaver Hills neighborhood, Akilah “moved around a lot” as a young adult, including several years in Indiana and Virginia. She's ready to settle down and get to know her neighbors. In one hand, she carried a zip-up case with a spray of her stickers fitted snugly inside. At each station, she flipped it open to show off the bright designs. 

“I’m really excited to get to know my community,” she said. “I wanna grow some roots.”

One table away, longtime West Havener Zohra Rawling greeted people at a table for music. As a founding member of the vaudeville revue Madame Thalia, Rawling wears many hats—opera singer, ceramicist, painter, beekeeper, teacher and mom to two creative kids. After recently meeting Slomba, she started writing for the ArtsWestCT newsletter. Helping form a music group seemed like a logical next step.

“No one is turned away,” she said of her approach to music. “I am a firm, staunch believer in building a longer table.”

With fellow opera singer Shawn Jeffery, she’s excited to be launching a group for musicians in the city. Their first big project will be bringing Make Music Day officially to West Haven on June 21. Even if they start small, she said, she’s excited to do it. 

“We’re Going On This Journey Together”

State Rep. Dorinda Borer, who represents West Haven.

Before networking Saturday, attendees listened closely as West Haven State Rep. Dorinda Borer took the mic, and filled them in on the former Masonic Temple at 304 Center St., which elected officials and city residents alike have been attempting to turn into an arts center for  the better part of two decades. In the last year, both Borer and West Haven Mayor Nancy Rossi have secured both state and federal funds that move that one step closer to becoming a reality.

Borer, who co-chairs the state’s Arts, Culture & Tourism Caucus, started by taking the audience back 18 years. It was then, she said, that arts advocates began first talking about the city’s need for a large arts center.

When Borer heard the Masons were considering selling to the City of West Haven in 2004, a group of educators, artists and West Haven residents gathered in the home of longtime city official Beth Sabo and hatched a plan. Not only did they want an institutional home to practice and open to other artists, “but we need an organization,” Borer recalled. “Because it’s not just about bricks and mortar. It’s about coming together as a community.”

The group founded the West Haven Council on the Arts, an organization that pledged to raise funds for an arts center. When the Masons did sell the building to the city in 2007, the council was up and running. By then, members had pledged to raise between $550,000 to $1 million in funding, according to a 2004 article in the New Haven Register. But the concept for an arts center in the old building—an example of adaptive reuse that can take millions of dollars—proved harder than they’d initially thought.

“While everybody had great intentions, everybody had a different idea of what the vision looked like,” Borer said. A trio of bedazzled penguins looked out unblinkingly from her pink sweater. “So it really didn’t gel for many years.”

For years, parts of a planned reconstruction took place in fits and starts. During an early “Phase I,” the City of West Haven purchased and gutted the building, removing mold and doing basic environmental remediation. In 2012, construction crews replaced the building’s old roof and installed solar panels. The following year, the council formed a board of directors and began to pursue not-for-profit status. In 2016, the center’s board of directors hired a fundraising consultant for the project.

But the fundraising piece has always struggled, said Borer. To date, the project has spanned the administrations of Mayors John M. Picard, Ed O’Brien and Nancy Rossi.

Then last year, Borer and fellow state legislators were able to secure $1.5 million from the State of Connecticut, as part of a $4 million package in state bonding that is coming to West Haven this year. Rossi and West Haven’s city council have also expressed interest in allocating a chunk of the city’s $29 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to the project, although they have not yet submitted a formalized plan on the spending.

Borer said that West Haven is now embarking on Phase II, which will address the building’s lack of electricity and HVAC, and structural deficiencies on the outside of the building. “It’s a lot of money, but we're getting that money in and we’re gonna make a lot of progress,” Borer said. She added that whatever the center becomes, it must have some tourism element that makes it an economic catalyst for the city.

She pulled up a PowerPoint of the building in its current condition, where signs of the temple’s former life still remain around every corner and down every hallway. On the second floor, a fireplace greets viewers at the base of a wall of exposed brick. A stately organ stands tall, in need of historic preservation and waiting for the right pair of hands to come back and play it. On the first floor, long hallways and big rooms filled with natural light.

“Let’s have an open mind, and we’re going on this journey together,” Borer said. “We’re not exactly sure where we’re going to end up. We’re going to take the road together. But everybody here has creative thoughts and ideas on how we can move forward, so we’re going to listen to each other, and … let’s just keep working together, because we don’t want history to repeat itself. It’s time to move forward.”