Haffner’s “Art is Everywhere” Contest
Check out this video on the Haffner’s/Esperanza partnership!
Young artists in Lawrence find beauty in plain sight
By Linda Greenstein Globe Correspondent,Updated December 19, 2019, 6:24 p.m.
The city of Lawrence has been publicly maligned for years. Media reports emphasize gangs, crime, and the 2018 gas explosions that devastated the community and forced thousands of families out of their homes for months.
Lilli Leggio, an art teacher at Esperanza Academy,a tuition-free, independent middle school for girls, discovered that this negative image is impacting the city’s young people.
“There is a dissonance in disliking where you are from because it is, in a way, disliking an inescapable part of yourself and sometimes you leave/run, trying to escape the connection or stain without fully understanding why,” said Leggio. “This is how a community loses talented young people and human capital.”
This fall, Leggio was approached by Haffner’s, an energy company founded in Lawrence in 1925, with the idea of wrapping an oil truck in student artwork.
Excitedly, the school created the “Art is Everywhere: Lawrence is a Masterpiece Contest” to create and choose the artwork for the truck.
Leggio’s enthusiasm was not immediately matched by her students, who didn’t at first see beauty in their city.
“I was focused on how great it was going to be that we’d get our artwork on a truck. In class I felt skepticism and caution from the girls, which shook me,” she said. “I should have known! I can tell you from firsthand experience as a girl who grew up in a community similar to Lawrence, surrounded by affluent communities with high-achieving schools and beautiful homes, that you start picking up those dissonant feelings about your hometown.”
Leggio, who grew up in West New York, N.J., and now lives in Newburyport, decided to show her students “beauty hiding in plain sight” by escorting them on walking field trips to take photos of Lawrence that would become the basis of their artwork.
Exploring the city had an immediate impact on the students.
“When I was taking photos, I was actually seeing what Lawrence is and how amazing and honoring it is to live in Lawrence. OMG Lawrence is beautiful and I don’t care what anyone says about my hometown,” wrote Yazlynn Fernandez, 12, in an essay about her experience.
“Many people focus on the negative things about Lawrence. But they’re just ignorant and closed minded, you can see how empowering, diverse, and historical Lawrence is,” wrote Jinyla Wilson, 12.
“Art and beauty exist all around Lawrence — sometimes in the unlikeliest of places — for those who pay attention with curious eyes,” said Leggio. “It is a delightful reward awaiting when we divert our eyes from cellphones and look around. This contest is about beautifying the community with our art and about encouraging citizens to explore what is interesting, compelling, and beautiful, hidden or in plain sight throughout Lawrence.”
Opened in 2006, Esperanza Academy is an independent school that welcomes girls of diverse faiths, races, and cultures. The tuition-free school is privately funded through donors.
The students’ impressive artwork captures the grandeur of Lawrence’s mill architecture, bridges, and the way the buildings look at sunset. The work of two students will be featured on the Haffner’s truck in January, but for Leggio all the students are winners.
“These paintings depict the hope and love that the girls have for Lawrence,” she said, “it is empowering and, in a way, they are taking back the narrative of what Lawrence is and can be.”
Linda Greenstein can be reached at greensteinlm@gmail.com.