LYNN — As 2022 nears its end, the city’s Arts and Culture planner, LaCrecia Thomson reflected on the progress her department has made, and her vision for Lynn’s artistic future, in an interview with The Item.
Thompson was hired as the third member of the Planning Department by former Mayor Thomas M. McGee in 2021.
Thomson started work on Aug. 2—when the pandemic was still in full swing— and said she was initially moved by the city’s appreciation for art during hard times.
“When I got here, we were still in the throes of the pandemic. Many arts organizations, in particular, were struggling a bit, as it was all around the country, but what I saw was this incredible resiliency and commitment to the area’s art and culture, and the community and bringing it, you know, a respite from the realities of the world,” Thomson said.
When she first started working for the city, Thomson oversaw “Lynnstallation,” the city’s Central Square sculpture project which birthed the “Laces of Lynn” statue on Mount Vernon Street.
Despite the frustrations and difficulties that came with the territory of managing a massive public art installation, Thomson said the level of community engagement associated with the project excited inspired her.
“It was a fun initiative. It got a little frustrating sometimes, just dealing with a major public art installation, and then, you know, learning about the intricacies of municipal procurement patterns and things like that. But I really loved the community outreach in the community engagement that was done prior to this installation,” Thomson said.
After a public vote, the community picked artist Kevin Orlosky’s proposed sculpture depicting an intricate web of multicolored shoelaces, each one carved with adjectives submitted by Lynners to describe the city.
Thomson considers the sculpture one of the year’s highlights. She said the public’s role in creating the art made it unique.
“People took time out of their lives and thinking about COVID survival— ‘Am I going to get sick? Am I going to lose my job? Who’s going to take care of my kids?’ The fact that people took the time to vote, and vote for arts in their city. To me, that was wonderful. People chose joy over worry, even if it was just for five minutes,” Thomson said.
“The fact that we were able to have words in other languages, I think there are at least five other languages, besides English, that are represented in that piece. I think that’s fantastic, and it just really shows commitment to inclusion, and it truly made it a piece for the community.”
Thomson moved to Lynn from Milwaukee. She was struck by public perceptions common to both cities.
“Milwaukee has a very thriving arts and culture scene. It’s the same with Lynn, and I want to make sure that we’re letting everybody know that that includes the Lynn community. I want people outside of Lynn to know that we’re not a pass-through to Salem —we are flush with art and culture, wonderful restaurants, and beautiful natural spaces, even just to change the narrative from that sad little jingle that is often brought up,” Thomson said.
Thomson said the city is planning a marketing campaign for spring 2023 that will include a social media campaign to tell Lynn’s rich history, along with the launch of a website that can organize local artists, artisans, and small businesses in the downtown area.
“It’s all about telling the story of Lynn and having our own control over that story so we can tell the real story. I think that is going to be a great start to all the other wonderful things that are happening in the arts and culture scene in Lynn,” Thomson said.
MassDevelopment picked Lynn out of a pool of six cities to participate in a two-year initiative aimed at helping small cities promote local art.
Thomson said that she hopes the initiative, which was organized with the help of the Barr Foundation, will also work to organize and bring together the city’s creative community for years to come.
“So often, in cities, Lynn included, we have wonderful arts and culture stakeholders. But so often, these organizations are siloed. This initiative will allow for a more meaningful collaboration and hopefully something that is sustainable beyond the two years of the program,” Thomson said.
Thomson is a classical violinist and she pointed to Lynn’s hip-hop community as a strong, local, creative asset that could be better showcased.
She said the city’s Keep Moving Forward hip-hop festival and the Lynn Museum’s interactive exhibit are examples of how the city can promote local artists, and bring people together.
“Having festivals like the hip-hop Festival, and they [the organizers] partnered with the Lynn Museum for their exhibit, I think that is a wonderful way of bringing hip-hop to everyone and changing people’s perceptions of what hip-hop culture is. Because people get their ideas about what something is, and they sit on those ideas, and don’t give it a chance and don’t learn about it,” Thomson said.
The City Council last week approved zoning changes intended to promote, commerce, park space, and; consequently, culture, to a previously underutilized area. Thomson wants the city to collaborate in organizing concerts and public gatherings on the waterfront.
Thomson envisions Mount Vernon Street, North Shore Community College, and Heritage Park offering public space opportunities.
“Some things are already happening, like at Red Rock Park, I know they have a concert series in the summer, but that’s just one part of this enormous, wonderful waterfront that we’re on,” Thomson said. “I have not been in any talks with anybody there but the space at North Shore Community College — I mean, they’ve got so much green space, and that’s an opportunity for collaboration and sharing resources —maybe doing some collaboration, programming, you know, so that we can get more people in that area.”
“We have the resources to be successful in this effort,” Thomson said. “I feel confident that we will be able to really change the course of art and culture here, with the help of all the wonderful partners I’ve been privileged to work with. The artists, and the art scene here, is great. […] and we’re willing to work toward a common goal of making Lynn the very best community it can be.”
