Watertown Arts & Culture Roundtable, September 2025
This is an arts and culture roundtable episode where we talk about things that have been going on in Watertown arts and culture recently, what's coming up, hidden gems, and more. The discussion was with Liz Helfer (City of Watertown, Public Arts and Culture Planner), Kristen Kenny (Chair of the Watertown Cultural District), and Jamie Kallestad (Communications and Design Specialist for the Watertown Free Public Library).
Released September 25th, 2025
(Click here to listen on streaming apps) (Full transcript below)
Links!
instagram.com/watertownpublib (for Bluey pics!)
The Art of Disruption: The Art and Impact of Serj Tankian
Scholastic Teachables - watertownlib.org/teachables
Club de Lectura en Español en WFPL
Mosesian Center for the Arts Member Exhibition 2025
Self-Guided Tour on Arshile Gorky
Democracy Talks: Advocates Respond to Disability Rights Under Attack
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This program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
Transcript
Matt: 0:07
Hi there, Welcome to the Little Local Conversations podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode, I sit down with someone in Watertown to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. This episode is a special arts and culture roundtable episode and I sat down with a few people to discuss stories, news, interesting facts, and upcoming events to keep an eye out for related to arts and culture in the city. So let's dive right in. Welcome to the arts and culture roundtable episode. This is for the month of September, October, fall time, and I am here today with, you want to just introduce yourself and your role as we go around, so go ahead.
Liz: 0:47
Hi, I'm Liz Helfer. I'm the Public Arts and Culture Planner for Watertown.
Kristen: 0:50
I am Kristen Kenny. I am the Chair of the Watertown Cultural District and former Chair of the Watertown Arts Market.
Jamie: 0:57
And hey, I am Jamie Kallestad. I'm the Communications and Design Specialist at the Watertown Free Public Library.
Matt: 1:04
Cool. Well, thank you all for being here. Let's just get right into it and start with our first segment, which is moments from the past month. Let's go with Liz. Liz, what do you got?
Liz: 1:15
Oh, I have a few, but, you know, I'm going to focus on one, and that was the season finale of the summer concert series at Saltonstall Park and we had Shokazoba, a pretty great beat style band, and we had the Puppeteers Cooperative, which someone told me is stuff of nightmares and also the stuff of dreams. And all the kids were running around. It was beautiful chaos. We had a wonderful time. I want to say thank you to everyone who came out for the 2025 season. We had wonderful bands and we're looking forward to putting together the 2026 season.
Matt: 1:45
Awesome. How about you, Jamie? What's a moment from the past month?
Jamie: 1:48
A moment that brought me a ton of delight is last week, I believe it would have been a Tuesday afternoon at the end of the workday, one of our children's room collaborators, the Little Beats Dance Studio, let us know that they were wondering if they could bring a special guest to their program at the library the next morning. They said, would it be okay if Bluey came to the library? And then all the librarians lost their minds. We all got very excited and yes, the Australian cartoon character Bluey visited the library as part of the Little Beats dance party for ages zero to five. I have a four and a half year old, so this was a very big deal to me. Although she was in school, I got lots of pictures with Bluey, so I got tons of cred. And then Bluey was all over our library Instagram getting a library card. It was like my Christmas. So Bluey visits the library. Great moment.
Matt: 2:40
That's a pretty big one. Yeah. All right, Kristen, you got to follow that up.
Kristen: 2:44
That's hard. I just discovered what a Bluey is, so that was exciting in itself. So in August we had the fifth annual Watertown Arts Market. It was banging. We had more vendors than we've ever had. Typically we're about 80, 85. This year we had about 120. We were back in Arsenal Park. Past two years we've been in Filippello Park, which is a delight. It's small, easy to get around, but nowhere to park, so that's a bit of a nightmare. This year being back in Arsenal Park was fantastic. We had once again more vendors than we've ever had, but we also had more visitors come. We had about 3,500 people coming in. There are five or six points of entry into this park, so we had our volunteers there with the little clickers counting heads and you can only click so fast, but it was quite an event. It was a gorgeous day. Every year we've had really good weather. I think I've just jinxed myself now, but yeah, it was fantastic. Fifth year, yep.
Matt: 3:48
Awesome. Well, let's move into our next one, which is somewhat related but a different focus somewhat, which is success story. So what is the success story that you'd like to share that has happened recently for you? Go ahead, Jamie.
Jamie: 4:00
The first thing that came to mind is tonight we have a very popular virtual program happening on the library's Zoom. I'll share the description because to me I found this really compelling and clearly a lot of other people did too. We have 500 people signed up for a virtual talk called Your Brain on ChatGPT. The gist of it is does ChatGPT and AI have a cost on our brain cognition? A new study from MIT found the answer could be yes. So we'll get to hear from the lead researcher, professor Dr. Nataliya Kos’myna of the MIT Media Lab. In this virtual program, we've teamed up with a bunch of other libraries, so we do have people from different communities around the Boston area joining this talk. But I will go ahead and say Watertown invited Dr Kos’myna and we're very proud of that because it seems like this is something people care a lot about. We've taken note of the interest and we'll see what else we can do to give people more information about this timely topic.
Matt: 4:56
Yeah, it kind of highlights again that the library is more than just coming here to read books and seeing Bluey. Wide variety. Awesome. Well, Liz, what's your success story you'd like to share?
Liz: 5:06
I'm going to say it's a growing success. So we have a program by the Public Arts and Culture Committee called WaterTunes, where you can share a piece of music that has meaning to you and we will put it on a playlist currently on the city's YouTube channel, which many people visit, I know, and we put it out there through the Summer Concert Series this past season and we got some amazing responses. Because with the piece of music itself, we also get why it's important to this individual. And so we have all these beautiful small stories of why music is meaningful to people in Watertown. And we're putting it together. We're going to culminate in a big dance party at the season finale of 2026 Summer Concert Series. If you would like to contribute your piece of music, you can find WaterTunes on the city website. You can track me down and I can give you a paper to fill out, but it's really been beautiful to read everyone's small stories.
Matt: 5:55
And yes, I always include lots of links in the notes, so everyone send me your links afterwards and I'll stuff them all in. All right, Kristen? What's your success story?
Kristen: 6:04
The success that I would like to discuss is Watertown Cultural District. We're gaining momentum. We have 29 partners right now and we're looking for more. Please check out our website, which is watertownmaculture.com. This year well, actually, in 2026, we are looking forward to, for example, Watertown's Treaty Day activities, that is part of the celebration of the 250th celebration of our nation, and also it's going to be wrapped up with the World Cup soccer that will be happening in Foxborough. And so 2026 has a lot to offer Massachusetts, but also Watertown as a whole.
Matt: 6:48
All right, so up next we get into kind of my fun sections I like. So did you know. Who has a did you know to share? All right, Liz, what's your did you know?
Liz: 6:59
Did you know that Serj Tankian has an exhibit at the Armenian Museum of America? Oh my gosh. If you didn't know who Serj Tankian is, he's the lead singer for System of a Down. In addition to being a really established and talented singer and songwriter, he's also a visual artist. And you can see his abstractions that are linked, also through QR codes, to music and poetry he's written, in the third floor gallery. It's called the Art of Disruption. It's very activist-oriented work and I highly recommend checking it out through February 28th.
Matt: 7:30
Awesome. All right, let's move along. Jamie, what did you know that you'd like to share about the library?
Jamie: 7:36
Yes, and in your preamble you referred to it as a hidden gem, and I did think of a great hidden gem with the help of our children's department. We have a whole bunch of digital resources at the library that people don't always know about, and one of them, for parents and families, is something called Scholastic Teachables. So if you're looking to supplement your children's learning, you can download free flashcards, lesson plans, craft materials through the library's website, through Scholastic Teachables, we give you free access. And this is the kind of service that a lot of times costs money online to get these type of learning materials. This is also a great resource for teachers who are looking to add things to their classroom. So always remember to check the library's website, talk to our children's librarians about what we can get you for free. But Scholastic Teachables is a big one. Definitely check it out.
Matt: 8:27
Much better than Lunchables.
Kristen:
I like Lunchables.
Jamie: 8:31
We can't get you free Lunchables.
Matt: 8:35
All right. Do you have a did you know? Got one, all right, so what's your did you know, Kristen?
Kristen: 8:39
Did you know that, and now I'm wearing my Watertown Cultural District hat, Meet Boston welcomes and will accept event listings from cultural institutions for inclusion on their site. There are no plans for it to be linked automatically to the Watertown Cultural calendar, but if you would like to add anything, it's www.meetboston.com, events, submit an event. These events should be open to the general public. This is not part of Mass tourism, but it is another way for smaller venues, smaller groups, to get their activities promoted and, you know, make Massachusetts and the general surrounding area and Watertown a happier place to be.
Matt: 9:22
Cool, all right. Next segment is number of the month. I always like these ones. So throw out the number, if you like us to guess, that's always fun too. Jamie, why don't you start this one off?
Jamie: 9:32
Great, I think this is a good number to start with. One.
Matt: 9:36
One. I mean, there are a lot of guesses.
Jamie: 9:40
The loneliest number.
Matt: 9:41
Is it the one year anniversary of something?
Jamie: 9:44
I don't think you'll guess. This is a deep cut, but I think it's very cool. One of our circ staff members reminded me that the Watertown Free Public Library is starting the first Spanish language book group in the Minuteman Library Network and that is very cool. We've offered a lot of book groups mystery, a book group for seniors, we have an LGBTQ book group. These are great, but we've always offered book groups in English. This is our first book group in another language. We're going to be reading books in Spanish.
Jamie: 10:13
I won't because I don't speak Spanish. But one of our circ staff members has really advocated to make this happen. She's a native Spanish speaker and has also worked hard to connect with folks who are coming to the library who speak Spanish as their native language and letting them know that we're going to start this. And it's been very cool to see this come together and it's kind of coming to a sort of first celebration. This month we have a local author, Maria Mayobre, who is going to be coming to the Spanish Book Group to talk about her novel Black Star. And Maria has also been deeply involved with the library starting our Domino's Night here. So these type of community collaborations are super exciting and right where, you know, I think the library should be, and I'm just so happy that we have staff here who are making this happen. So, if you're a Spanish speaker, if you like reading books in Spanish, check out the Spanish Language Book Group that meets once a month at the library.
Matt: 11:03
Awesome. All right, Liz, what's your number?
Liz: 11:06
Four. So there are four expert pairings projects, public art projects coming up very shortly this fall. Expert pairings is a project of the Public Arts and Culture Committee. It is designed to pair scientists and artists to create temporary public art installations that address our local ecology. It is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts as well as the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. We're really thrilled to run this project through the city and to really explore how we interact with the natural world around us. So we have Tangled Connections by Leah Craig, Nicole Weber, Amy Mertl, and Romi Boucher. They have a sculpture installation on the community path currently about knotweed. It's called Tangled Connections and they're doing an unruly plant workshop here at the library on October 8th from 630 to 730. You can learn more about the uses of knotweed and how invasive it is and troubling it is, but also how it's really not going to go away. And if you take that workshop you'll get to enjoy a knotweed-based treat created by O’some Cafe.
Liz: 12:07
The second event coming up is Remixing the Forest by Ira Klein, a musician, and Jenny Wang, an engineer, with Stanton Nash and Quinn Henthorne. It is a music and sculpture installation that will be on the Green at Arsenal Yards on October 18th from 630 to 9. It is interactive. The more you interact with it, the more you change the music and the symphony about the trees. I really hope you'll go check it out. It's going to be spectacular. They're both incredibly talented and their whole team. I can't wait to be there.
Liz: 12:33
And then next we have Faces of the Forest by Jenn Houle and Patrick Fairbairn. They're creating artistic educational signs at Whitney Hill Park and an accompanying zine that will hopefully become part of the library collection. Yay. They're going to be doing an artist walk and talk at the Marion hill entrance to Whitney Hill Woods on October 25th from 10 to 11 am. So you can get their take on the signage that they've created, which has to do with the kind of ancient history of that location and the species that are there now, the keystone species. And the fourth one. We have River Run. It is a mural that's going to be created by Sophy Tuttle in partnership with the Charles River Watershed Association. We're working to finalize the location details, but it will be somewhere in vicinity to the Watertown Dam, exploring the impacts of the dam on the fish populations here. We had thought it would be installed this autumn. It will most likely be installed in the spring.
Matt: 13:25
Whew, a lot going on there. All right, Kristen, do you have a number to share?
Kristen: 13:30
I do. Now I'm wearing my former Watertown Arts Market hat. I have two numbers. In August of 2026, I have a save a date for you, August 8th, 2026 will be the sixth annual Watertown Arts Market, with the newly improved Arsenal Park and all the fences are now down, giving us more access to more space, adding perhaps more vendors, but definitely more fun. You heard it here August 8th, 2026. Save the date.
Matt: 14:03
Less fences, more fun, awesome. So let's roll it into our next segment, then, which is another one where we kind of get to discover some things. So what's that thing? So tell me about something, some object, artwork, something else in the city that we might not know about or that people might be curious about that they are seeing. So, Liz, why don't you start us off?
Liz: 14:24
What's that thing? It's probably a sculpture installation. We are partnering, the Public Arts and Culture in Watertown is partnering, with the light sculpture class at MassArt to do temporary sculptural light installations outside of Sullivan Park. The undergraduate class will be visiting the site with me. They'll be working with their professor, Elaine Buckholtz. They will be coming through October developing their project idea and then installing. It'll be up for the month of November.
Matt: 14:54
More lights, more fun. Kristen, tell us about something. What's a thing?
Kristen: 15:00
So what's that thing happening at the Mosesian between September 12th and October 31st? Well, that, my friend, would be the community member artists at Mosesian Center's gallery space. And every year they have a exhibit of their members' artwork and I have to say that it is spectacular. And the galleries are always open during the day. You should just stop by on your way to Arsenal Yards or Arsenal Park or Arsenal Street or Watertown Mall, any of those areas, and check out the exhibit. It's spectacular. The space itself, Mosesian, is just superb.
Matt: 15:36
Yeah, and it's cool that it's all people who are supporting the arts and showing off their work there too, so it's a nice patting on the back of each other there. I like that. Jamie, what do you got for us? What's that thing?
Jamie: 15:46
My attention was turned towards an interesting thing in our library that I don't always think about. There is a portrait of the sculptor Harriet Hosmer that has been on display in our local history room for a long time. It is a drawing and it's of her as a very young woman and we've had this in our collection for a long time. Yesterday it left the library. It was not an art heist. It's going on loan to the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, New York.
Jamie: 16:12
They are creating an exhibit about the sculptor, Emma Stebbins, who is a contemporary of Hosmer, and I think the art historians believe that Emma Stebbins actually drew that portrait of Hosmer, but I don't know if that is confirmed. That's the intrigue and the drama. So I think it's always very exciting when something that's in the library's permanent art collection goes out to another museum and is recontextualized, and it's just a good reminder that there's some cool art that's in the library every single day. You can walk in and see it for free. So you can't see the portrait of Harriet Hosmer right now. It will come back to us, but in the meantime just explore the library and see what's on the walls.
Matt: 16:48
Yeah, and maybe a quick thing. Who is Harriet Hosmer for people who don't know?
Jamie: 16:51
I might have to defer to Liz on this one, but I do know that she is one of the most preeminent sculptors of the 19th century, Watertown resident. Big deal.
Liz: 17:03
Yeah. I don't have much to add, but the fact that she was operating in the 19th century. She lost out on opportunities because she was a woman, but she built her own opportunities and she studied in Europe under great masters of the time and is an incredible figurative sculptor.
Jamie: 17:18
A lot of her work is on display in the library, so you can still see a lot of Hosmer sculptures. Some of her tools are currently on loan to the Heckscher Museum as well, but there's a lot of Hosmer memorabilia in our local history room if you want to dig.
Matt: 17:29
Awesome. Okay, if anyone has an extra thing to share, there can be some bonus things if you want, if you have something that you're really excited about sharing.
Liz: 17:37
There is a new thing in Watertown to discover. There are two granite posts. One is at the intersection of Arlington and Coolidge Hill Road and it is a marker that dedicates the location where Arshile Gorky lived when he was here, in the house that his sister Akabi managed as a boarding house. And then there's another marker at the intersection of Hazel and Dexter, very similar to the first one, granite posts with a nice plaque on it, and it dedicates the location where he lived after his sister Akabi moved to a house on that street. And we are very interested in the dedication of Arshile Gorky here because he's an Armenian artist who immigrated to Watertown because that's where his family was and there's a strong Armenian population here already. And then he moved to New York to really become well known for his art. But he was born here as an American artist. And we are really thrilled to dedicate this walking tour to him. The other side, the square there at Hazel and Dexter, is dedicated to him. You'll see another sign there, as well as the mural under the Grove Street underpass along the Watertown Cambridge Greenway. So if you link all these together, you have a beautiful walking tour of the neighborhood where he resided while he was here.
Matt: 18:40
Another big deal in Watertown and the art world. Awesome. Well then, let's roll into the last section, which I'm sure we'll have plenty of things to talk about too. Upcoming. Liz has a head of steam, so go ahead. Lead us off.
Liz: 18:52
Well, straight line from Gorky tour, we have an upcoming exhibition at the Armenian Museum of America that will open in December. It is an exhibition of original works by Arshile Gorky. We were thrilled to have them, many of them have not been seen before. Some of them are personal objects that he created for family members. It promises to be an incredible show and I can't wait for you to see it. We also have two opportunities for artists here in Watertown. One is called Open for Business. It is a $15,000 award for a two-year installation in Coolidge Square. It is really open to interpretation, how you would like to design and propose your installation. I'm happy to talk with any artists or artist teams who are interested. The Call for Art is open until October 26th. And then we have a Call for Art for our Community Sculpture Walk, the next season. It's a two-year loan of work, existing sculptural work. You get a $3,000 stipend for the two-year loan and that call for art is up until November 2nd.
Matt: 19:49
Great, so, Jamie, go ahead. What do you have for us?
Jamie: 19:52
I previously mentioned our very popular Democracy Talk tonight about AI. That'll be long gone by the time this podcast airs, but our next Democracy Talk at the library is October 21, and it's called Advocates Respond to Disability Rights Under Attack. We have a star-studded panel of disability rights advocates from the local area, many of whom are part of the Watertown community. This event is co-hosted with the Watertown Commission on Disability and World in Watertown. It's going to be in person. ASL and CART services will be provided. Highly recommend checking out this event at the library. Since you said we could say two, I will also do a sneak preview further into the future.
Jamie: 20:33
November 21, we have a very exciting event happening. The library is one of a handful of institutions in the greater Boston area that's going to have a live simulcast of a one-of-a-kind, once-in-a-lifetime performance by Yo-Yo Ma at Boston Symphony Hall. The Boston Symphony Hall concert, where Ma will be performing Bach's cello suites, has already sold out. But part of the whole ethos of that event and building community across classical music is doing a live stream at institutions all around Symphony Hall so that more people than can actually fit into that building can participate. So I'm thrilled that the library is one of those arts institutions.
Jamie: 21:15
We will have tickets. It's free but it will be limited. So I say tickets, but registration is open on October 24. The library will be open after hours. It's going to be a really unique event where we're going to be streaming this Yo-Yo Ma performance. We're hoping to tie it in with classical musicians from the Watertown area, make it a really festive evening celebrating classical music and we'll kick off our winter concert series. So we love classical music. Very cool that we're part of this Yo-Yo Ma event and stay tuned for more.
Kristen: 21:48
I'm going to stay on this musical theme because I love the music. I'd like to talk about Gore Place and all the music that's happening there starting in October. October 4th they have Chamber Music in the Mansion. It's a matinee show from two to three. They also have Laurel Martin and Mark Roberts in the Carriage House. They are a fiddle playing duet. Concerts in the Carriage House also is including New England Irish Harp Orchestra and that is October 29th. If you just go to the Gore Estate website, you'll be amazed at the amount of music that they're having there. They have many venues on the estate for different types of music and I think it's rather charming that if you're seeing something classical, it's indoors of the mansion itself. Something that's more fiddle-based or Americana-based, rootsy you'll find in some of their carriage houses or sometimes even in the barn. So you could spend an entire day there going through the mansion itself, seeing some music, and also playing with the animals, which sometimes go into the venues themselves. It's a lot of fun.
Matt: 22:54
Nice, and I'll just throw in one thing here that I do a series called Creative Chats over at the Mosesian Center for the Arts. It's on the first Friday of every month. Each of the people, Liz, Kristen, and Jamie, have all been guests on Creative Chats and it's always 8.30 to 10 am on the first Friday of the month. And it's just a great way to have a conversation on a particular topic of creativity. And the guest for October, which is Friday, October 3rd, is going to be a librarian here, Megan Ramette, who is part of the Watertown Zine Fest team, and we're going to talk about zines and the culture of it and the importance of it and all that. So come on out to that on Friday, October 3rd. And that leads in a little bit. Jamie, do you want to mention ZineFest at all, because that's a pretty big deal at the library too.
Jamie: 23:40
Absolutely, I was holding back because I know that you're very kindly devoting so much attention to ZineFest in your next Creative Chats episode. But yes, mark your calendar for October 18 at the library, it's Watertown ZineFest, celebration of DIY publishing and zine making and attend the creative chat on October 3rd, or listen to the web version with Megan. She'll have a lot of really interesting things to say, I think, about zines.
Matt: 24:05
Yeah, great. Well, any other closing thoughts or things we missed that people want to make sure we get out there to the Watertown Arts and Culture listeners out there. If not, we'll just wrap it up.
Kristen: 24:16
Thanks, Matt.
Liz: 24:17
Thanks, Matt.
Jamie: 24:18
Thank you.
Matt: 24:18
All right. Well, thank you guys for taking the time and until next time. So that's it for this Arts and Culture Roundtable. You can check out the show notes for links for things that were mentioned in the episode. And if you'd like to find more podcast episodes where I sit down with folks around the city, get their stories, learn what's going on, you can head on over to littlelocalconversations.com. I have all the episodes, information on events coming up and you can sign up for my weekly newsletter there as well. And if you'd like to help support the podcast, you can also do that by clicking on the support local conversation button in the menu.
Matt: 24:49
All right, and to wrap up here, I want to give a few shout outs. First one goes to podcast sponsor Arsenal Financial. They're a financial planning business here in Watertown that's owned by Doug Orifice, who is a very committed community member. But his business helps busy families, people close to retirement and small businesses. So if you need help with any of those, you can reach out to Doug and his team at arsenalfinancia.lcom. I also want to give a thank you to the Watertown Cultural Council, who have given me a grant this year to help support the podcast, so I want to give them the appropriate credit, which is, this program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. You can find out more about them at watertownculturalcouncil.org and massculturalcouncil.org.
Matt: 25:28
And a couple more shout-outs to promotional partners. First one goes to the Watertown Business Coalition. They're a nonprofit organization here in Watertown that's bringing businesses and people together to help strengthen the community. You can find out more about them at watertownbusinesscoalition.com. And lastly, promotional partner Watertown News, which is an online newspaper focused on Watertown. It's run by Charlie Breitrose and it's a great place to check out everything that's going on in the city. So go to watertownmanews.com. So that's it. Until next time, take care.
