Chelsea Art Walk great success; hundreds view local exhibits

The annual Chelsea Art Walk once again revealed this city’s artful heart and soul.

With exhibits displayed throughout the city, Chelsea’s budding local art community got to show off its best work.

Eleven different venues – from oil paintings shown inside local galleries to music being played by performing artists at Chelsea City Hall, to outdoor art displayed in Chelsea Square – Saturday and Sunday was Chelsea Art Walk Day.

One of the signature oil painting exhibits was that of local artist Arnie Casavant.

His oil paintings were displayed in the Spencer Loft Gallery.

About 20 oil paintings executed in the style of the late artist Edward Hopper, the prominent American realist painter, depicts many of Chelsea’s most notable brick buildings and landscape scenes.

Using light as his inspiration, Casavant captures the true look and feel of the city’s oldest landmarks and brick buildings by washing them with sunlight.

“I paint sunlight,” Casavant said at the Spencer Gallery Sunday afternoon.

“Light is the bringer of beauty,” he added.

At Chelsea City Hall’s East Wing there was a fascinating display of unique quilts created by Chelsea’s elderly community a decade ago.

In Chelsea Square, an extraordinary display of reflective chrome style outdoor art tried to connect modern man with the marshes and tall grass that we presumably evolved out of.

On Arlington Street, there was a wonderful display of sculpture at New England Sculpture – a commercial foundry and perhaps the city’s funkiest art venue.

At the Pearl Street Gallery images of beach, boats, rain, above and below the sea in all mediums attracted a large number of viewers.

At Chelsea Neighborhood Developers on Gerrish Avenue, a large display of photography from around the world highlighted Chelsea’s rich diversity.

The Chelsea Public Schools offered an art show of student work on Hawthorne Street.

Chelsea’s Cary House, the oldest standing structure in Suffolk County, offered a display of famous Low Art Tiles.

At the Chelsea City Café – the city’s best and only café – the artistic bill of fare included an eclectic array of street scene type works.

In Chelsea Square at the Appollinaire on Winnisimmet Street a wide and varied number of offerings from photos to music and even a play performed by Robert Boulrice as well as jazz by Charlie Kohlhase’s Explorers rounded out the day.