WESTBROOK, Maine — A new street mural in Westbrook seeks to reflect on the music and history of the Underground Railroad, whose routes ran through the city as enslaved people traveled north toward freedom in Canada in the 18th and 19th centuries.
On Sunday, volunteers put the finishing touches on a work of blue lines and colorful circles running the length of Vallee Square in downtown Westbrook. The group Discover Downtown Westbrook organized the event.
"It’s fun to just make your mark on something," Ariana Amacker, who is a program coordinator at Discover Downtown Westbrook and volunteer muralist, said. "It adds color and liveliness."
The lines and circles, when seen from a birds-eye view, show notes on a musical staff. The tune they make is “Wade in the Water,” an African-American spiritual song strongly connected to the Underground Railroad, where enslaved people moved in between safehouses on the treacherous journey from south to north, with the goal of reaching freedom in Canada—a British colony in the late 19th and 19th centuries, when many enslaved people made the journey.
The Westbrook mural’s designer, Michael Shaughnessy, intended for the notes to the song to follow a linear direction, becoming bubbles as they near the intersection with the Presumpscot River, which he calls a "metaphor."
"Because it was also a dammed river in this area, and the dams have come off, and so now it’s alive and breathing again," Shaughnessy said.
The ground mural is also a nod to the summer concert series that takes place on top of it, in Vallee Square.
"There has always been a lot of artists who have lived here and a lot of musicians. This piece kind of responds to that tradition," Shaughnessy added.
Project organizers expect the work to be finished and the street to open in a matter of days.
For more information on other projects in Westbrook, you can visit downtownwestbrook.com