REVERE — A mural was unveiled Thursday afternoon, transforming a once dreary underpass on Sargent Street into a place for art and celebration.
The historic mural was created by Saugus artist Debbie Barrett-Cutulle and installed at the U.S. Highway 1 underpass near Paws and Play Dog Park. Its design was crafted after several meetings with the West Revere Neighborhood Group and later the Revere Mural Group.
“Creative minds such as hers can take a place (that’s) a little drab and turn it into a place of beauty,” said Mayor Brian Arrigo.
Neighbors came to meetings bearing old photographs and other pieces of memorabilia, and Barrett-Cutulle had free reign to choose what spoke to her, said project planner Elle Baker, who works in the city’s Office of Strategic Planning and Economic Development Department.
A photograph of a young boy with his dogs did the trick. She tucked it away and it soon became a lifelike centerpiece to her sprawling piece of art. That boy, now 95, is lifelong Revere resident Vincent Cammarata. The mural gained his approval Thursday.
“West Revere is now known as best Revere,” said Cammarata.
Barrett-Cutulle researched the neighborhood at the Historical Commission and got to work with a pen and paper.
“I just began to sketch,” she said. “What I’ve done is an illustration on a much larger scale.”
The mural was created using a series of 4-by-8-foot panels that she completed piece by piece.
Barrett-Cutulle, who went to the Art Institute of Boston, is an illustrator by trade and has been for many years. Fifteen years ago she discovered a knack for sand sculpting, beginning with logos and advancing to become one of about a dozen sculptors who create magic at the Revere Beach Sand Sculpting Festival each year. It’s hard for her to choose her favorite medium, but she’s partial to painting, she said.
The mural is a start for the city, which plans to expand the program to transform other spaces into more welcoming places, said Baker. It will start with a mural on the other side of the same underpass with the same nostalgic Revere theme.
The $15,000 project was funded by grants from Revere on the Move, the Revere Cultural Council and the fundraising efforts of resident Priscilla Nickerson, who runs a Santa Walk every year.
