By Jeremy F. van der Heiden

The City of Somerville has a very active and truly unique artist’s scene, as is evident by the never-ending stream of events, gallery showings and more that come through each week. This trend continues next weekend, as local artist Heidi Reynolds will bring her Rolling Gallery to Union Square from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 12.

Reynolds, a Master’s candidate at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, explains on her website that she enjoys myriad art forms, including video, installations, performance, sculpture and community oriented pieces. The Rolling Gallery is a perfect embodiment of her preferences for form, as well as the concepts she works to bring to light, such as trauma, memory, and letting go of the past.

As she explains on her website for the Rolling Gallery, the project started as a means of pulling all of the excess baggage formed throughout life’s passes and placing it into “one giant great ball” that she could then roll around the world. Reynolds also explained that this allowed her to look at all the things built up inside of and around her and create a surreal manifestation of emotional and intangible tokens of her past.

The artist explained how this is a collaborative work, and relies on individual expression and participation to come full circle. Past venues the gallery has rolled through include The Distillery in South Boston and two Somerville spaces, The Sherman Café and The Arts at the Armory. Anyone interested in attending the event is encouraged to bring pieces of personal art or possessions to trade or simply dispel into the Rolling Gallery itself.

“The project hopes to defy the ‘art as elite and precious’ notion by living outside the traditional gallery and museum, engaging with ‘artist’ and ‘non-artist’ alike, and rolling down the street in public spaces with disregard to final product, process, and materials,” Reynolds explained in a public statement.

As for the actual artwork in the great ball, the items could not be more dynamic in their variance. As the contributions have come from Reynolds and a variety of others, visitors can see everything from Charlie Brown books to personal love letters, photographs, poems, musical compositions, stuffed animals, origami, dolls and much, much more.

While visitors will have the opportunity to be collaborators in the project, the artist stresses that this is a family-friendly event that will be enjoyable for anyone interested.
In the statement regarding the event on Saturday, the artist cited that there will be variety presentations, such as audio recordings describing some of the works contained in the ball from contributors and a video-formatted documentary of the Rolling Gallery’s travels. Additionally, Reynolds will be hosting an artist’s talk with visitors, while acoustic musical performances will fill the air for what is sure to be a beautiful day in Somerville.
The weatherman is forecasting sun and warmth this Saturday, so consider making the trip to Union Square for a fun, community-oriented artistic day. More information on the artist and the Rolling Gallery itself can be found at www.rollinggallery.org.