All photos taken by Zhi Zhu.
Artists in Malden got an opportunity to display their work to the public during Malden’s second Winter Festival. The festival was almost like a large consolidated gallery outside, in which one can check out cool pieces of art made by local businesses with the addition of fun, festive type feels.
Occurring on November 20th, there was a wide variety of art displayed to be bought at the festival from jewelry to cosmetics and tableware. Even a DJ was playing live music to lighten the mood! The temperature was frigid that day, but nevertheless, a number of people still showed up to the festival to buy some art—including Mayor of Malden Gary Christenson!
The Mayor shared that the Malden Winter Festival started after the early stages of COVID lockdown because the lockdown had prevented businesses from being able to keep up with their businesses and getting their work out.
With this in mind, the festival has allowed local businesses to showcase their art products in Malden, potentially helping to boost their sales! “We just knew they had a really difficult number of years, and so every event that we did coming out, we wanted to involve our small business owners,” Christenson emphasized.
The festival “brings us together and that is always important no matter what time of the year,” Christenson expressed. A sense of community and togetherness is extremely important— especially during one of the toughest few years the world has had—with small businesses being most impacted. “We knew coming out that we wanted to come up with ways to help our local businesses recover, and so, these festivals have done that.”
However, the second Winter Festival seemed to have been scaled down compared to its hosting the previous year. This year, the festival was located right outside Malden City Hall, which was a drastic change compared to last year’s more general location.
In contrast to this year's festival, it saw more attendees and activities all along Pleasant Street. However this year, I’ve noticed that there were no games nor people who dressed in inflatable festive costumes that the festival had brought last year. It raises the question of whether local businesses are seemingly starting to recover from the pandemic and whether the festival is starting to phase out.
One thing is certain, though: what the Mayor likes about the festival is that it brings the community together. “That has never been so important after what we've been through over the past couple of years; that's what I like best.”
The Winter Festival has brought many businesses in Malden great help, and citizens a great work of art!
