It's time for a New Brunswick Spring Cleaning. New Jersey Community Water Watch and Albus Cavus are teaming up to clean the banks of the "Old Raritan" with a little artwork thrown in. Actually, a lot of artwork.
The Raritan River Art Walk is a community-based revitalization project that will result in an unusual outdoor gallery of 500 to 600 murals of artwork - a new public space where local residents can enjoy the outdoors.
Two locations were selected for this year's cleanup. Daniel Platt, of New Jersey Water Watch, said the plan is to improve and beautify a certain section that runs between Boyd Park and Buccleuch Park.
"We want to create a path where people can enjoy the beauty of the Raritan, a significant part of the New Brunswick environment," he said.
Volunteers will gather this Friday at 2 p.m. at Deiner Park on the College Avenue campus and continue Saturday until the entire area along the path is cleaned. Besides litter collection, they will clear the path of invasive plants and bushes, replacing them with native plants.
Community artists are looking to attract and inspire visitors with their work on a wall that is over a mile long. "If more people went to the river," Platt said, "the more they will want to help improve the environment."
"We are aiming to establish the largest outdoor mural gallery on the East Coast," he said. "It has already attracted a lot of attention as a proposal, and we are hoping that by the end of year 2007 it will be a well defined project with a huge portion of the wall covered by artwork."
Because of its scope and location, Platt sees the project as part of the master plan for the redesign of the College Avenue campus. Its connection to the river adds an additional spot for University students to hang out and enjoy the artwork and the environment of the river, an ideal place for bike riders and joggers.
Not only will Rutgers student benefit from the project, but after-school programs are also directly working with Albus Cavus to bring their classes down to the river. This project could very well bridge the age gap between college students and kids of the community. A huge emphasis is being placed on involving school children from New Brunswick.
But first, the audience is invited to actually take part in the process, creating artwork themselves while maintaining the space. The Raritan River Art Walk will be an actual test to see if they can revive public spaces with increased community involvement and open expression of creativity.
The residents have the final say on the pieces each artist creates. With this project, Albus Cavus looks to create an experimental space in which the borderline between the artist and the audience will be very blurry.
The project doesn't end there. On April 21, another cleanup is scheduled for the banks of the Raritan River near the Route 1 Bridge. Interested volunteers will gather at 11 a.m. in the Loews Movie Theater parking lot.
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