Top: The vendor market. Bottom: Rachel Alderman and her 12-year-old son Jonah, who won the duck race last year. This year, he entered four ducks but suffered the crushing agony of defeat.
For 12-year-old Jonah Alderman, it was an excitement that couldn't be quieted, not even by the agony of defeat after the rubber duck race. For artists Nancy Nearing and Megan Maxwell, it was a way to share creative work—and a sense of camaraderie—while ringing in a season of fairs and festivals. And for Andrea Daniels-Singleton, it was a chance to mark the first event in a month that centers community, from Westville to West Rock.
Artists, families, neighborhood champions and a few hundred rubber duck enthusiasts all harnessed that community spirit Saturday, as the sun came out in time for the 28th annual Westville ArtWalk. Held across Edgewood Park and in Westville Village, the day-long festival closed out a week of celebrating creative community in the neighborhood, from a "Six-Square Jam" at Kehler Liddell Gallery to circus performers in the park.
It is an initiative of the Westville Village Renaissance Alliance (WVRA), with a list of community partners that has continued to grow over the last two decades. They include, for instance, not just WVRA Executive Director Lizzy Donius, filmmaker Travis Carbonella, and producer Jes Mack, but also ArtWalk founding members like Muffy Pendergast and Frank Bruckmann, who now run a "Westville Fringe" festival on a closed-off West Rock Avenue.
Westville artist Dooley-O was one of dozens of vendors, many based in Westville, to show his work in Saturday.
"This one felt great to me," said Donius in a phone call Monday afternoon, noting the sheer number of people at a Saturday evening performance from Cirque Kikasse, as a 700-attendee WineDown CT unfolded just blocks away. "It just really felt like we had activated everything, and that every partnership that we had worked on came through. It felt hard and it felt big in all of the good ways."
She added that this year's ArtWalk felt like a triumph not only because of its sun-soaked culmination, but a number of on-the-spot pivots and new and evolving partnerships, which WVRA has continued to build as the festival has grown from one day to an entire week. While there are the ArtWalk OGs—A Broken Umbrella Theatre, for instance, members of which transform into glib newscasters for the day—she, Mack and fellow organizers are always looking for ways to bring in more of the community, from vendors to film screenings.
On Friday, for instance, the evening's planned beer garden and performance were completely rained out—and so Cirque Kikasse members pivoted, coming to Westville just hours after gracing the New Haven Green. Then on Saturday, Donius was excited to be working with groups like WineDown CT for the first time.
And in between, organizers realized that the West River would be too swollen for their normal rubber duck race routine and pivoted, bobbing on kayaks as they waited for hundreds of tiny, bright ducks to make their arrival. By the time winners were announced, Donius said, one kayak was speeding down the river to catch up with a few candy-colored, errant rubber waterfowl.
"It was madness, as it should be," she said with a laugh.
The scene from atop the bridge in Edgewood Park, which was soon packed with people.
Producer Jes Mack at a tent for all things ArtWalk in Edgewood Park.
Artists Megan Maxwell and Nancy Nearing, both of whom are based in Hamden's Spring Glen neighborhood.
Andrea Daniels-Singleton and Steffon Jenkins.
Artist Ericka Saracho of Bright Raven Studio, which makes and sells ceramics right here in New Haven.
Candice Dorman, founder of Ekow Body.
A sun-soaked Muffy Pendergast and JoAnne Wilcox.