Category: Featured Content

News & Notes 21/06/10

Covid-19 updateAs of May 30As of June 7
Total cases statewide98,72698,941
Total current infections statewide476353
Total deaths statewide1,3531,357
New cases377 (May 25 to May 30)215 (May 31 to June 7)
Current infections: Hillsborough County13693
Current infections: Merrimack County3832
Current infections: Rockingham County7550
Information from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services

Covid-19 news

During the state’s weekly public health update on June 3, state epidemiologist Dr. Benjamin Chan reported that there was a daily average of between 50 and 60 new daily infections of Covid-19 in New Hampshire over the previous week, numbers that are “substantially down” from the peak of the most recent surge of cases over the winter, when averages were between 800 and 900. “We’re making great progress in bringing the number of new infections down,” Chan said. “Our test-positivity rate over the last week has averaged under 2 percent.”

More than 660,000 people in the Granite State, or just under 50 percent of the population, are now fully vaccinated as of June 3, according to Dr. Beth Daly, Chief of the Bureau of Infectious Disease Control of the New Hampshire Department of Health & Human Services. “The state-run fixed sites are now closed for new people wanting to get vaccinated,” Daly said. “However, they will continue to provide those second-dose vaccinations through June … and there are many other locations to get vaccinated, either through hospitals, pharmacies, community health centers and community clinics run by our local health departments and the Public Health Networks.”

Later during the press conference, Gov. Chris Sununu announced plans for a few new Covid-related relief funds for certain business sectors in the state. They include a lodging relief program, a live venue assistance program, and a recoupment relief program for businesses that applied for grants but ended up experiencing better-than-anticipated revenues in 2020. “If you’re on the line to repay money back to the state, and really back to the federal government, they can now deduct Covid-related expenses to offset what they owe,” Sununu said. “So we’re creating a new program to allow these businesses to keep money, and we do that by allowing them to show us what their costs of Covid were.”

When asked about the United States-Canada border, and Canada’s role in New Hampshire’s tourism season, Sununu said that it “definitely has to be open.” The border remains closed to nonessential travel through at least June 21. “I understand Canada is way behind the United States in terms of vaccine distribution. In fact, if we have extra vaccine, I’m more than willing to give it to Canada. … We’re waiting to hear from the president,” Sununu said.

Psychiatric beds

As of June 7, New Hampshire had no adults in hospital emergency departments waiting for inpatient psychiatric treatment for the first time since the pandemic began. According to a press release, the Department of Health and Human Services has been following an executive order made by Gov. Chris Sununu on May 13 to implement immediate solutions that give New Hampshire residents experiencing a mental health crisis timely and appropriate medical care. This has included offering long-term care facilities a $45,000 per bed incentive to accept geropsychiatric patients from New Hampshire Hospital or the Glencliff Home, which has created an additional 25 beds at New Hampshire Hospital, the release said. The long-term plan will require increased community-based services; in the next month DHHS will present contracts to the Executive Council for mobile crisis response for all populations, contracting with children’s residential providers to provide continuum of care. The department will also continue its work to implement the 10-Year Mental Health Plan to further address barriers to mental health care, the release said.

School survey

Parents, educators and community members are being asked to take the 603 Bright Futures Survey, which was created to give the New Hampshire Department of Education insight into people’s thoughts on school districts’ responses to the pandemic, and how this past year’s experience should influence plans for fall learning. According to a press release, a similar survey last spring regarding remote learning and the return to school generated more than 56,000 responses, which helped the state create its K-12 Back to School Guidance plan. The 603 Bright Futures Survey is now open and will stay open until June 30. For families with children in K-12, preschool and private schools, the survey can be taken at bit.ly/nhdoefamily. For staff in public and private schools, the survey is at bit.ly/nhdoestaff. And for community members without children in local schools, the survey can be found at bit.ly/nhdoecommunity.

Help for Hampton

Hampton will have more help from the state to help keep the beach town safe this summer, according to a press release from the Department of Safety. Additional resources are being made available to the town to assist with operations, as part of a collaboration between local, county and state law enforcement agencies. There will be more patrols along the beach and surrounding roads, the release said, and the increased police presence is meant to keep large crowds safe and maintain a welcoming environment. “Travel is expected to be at record levels this summer across the country and New Hampshire, and Hampton is no exception,” Hampton Police Chief David Hobbs said in the release. “We are incredibly grateful for the collaboration between the New Hampshire State Police, county law enforcement, and the Hampton Police Department to ensure that visitors and residents enjoy all that Hampton has to offer this summer.”

More produce

Families participating in the NH Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program will be able to buy more fruits and vegetables this summer. According to a press release, the state is providing a temporary increase in benefits specifically for produce, provided by the US Department of Agriculture’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. The program, which typically allocates a monthly stipend of $9 per child and $11 per mother for the purchase of fruits and vegetables, will temporarily provide $35 per person each month from June through September. WIC participants will be able to use the funds to purchase more fresh, canned, and frozen fruits and vegetables through 158 participating vendors across the state. The stipend will automatically be added to the eWIC benefit card, the release said.

The Contoocook Railroad Museum Visitor Center will be able to open for summertime hours, through Labor Day, thanks to a grant from the Kearsarge Area Chamber of Commerce. According to a press release, the site includes the historic 1849 depot, the world’s oldest surviving railroad covered bridge, a 1907 Pullman Coach car and a late 1800s section house, and it is located next to the Contoocook River in Village Square in Contoocook.

After being closed for nearly 60 years, the Lakeport Opera House in Laconia will be opening for the first performance in six decades, according to a press release. The Flutie Brothers Band, featuring former NFL star Doug Flutie and his brother Darren, will perform Saturday, June 12, at 8 p.m.

The Manchester Health Department, located at 1528 Elm St., is offering free walk-in vaccination clinics on Mondays from 9 to 11 a.m. and Wednesdays from 2 to 4 p.m. for ages 12 and up. According to a press release, the clinics were scheduled to begin June 9. No appointment is necessary, and all three vaccine types will be available while supplies last.

The Southern New Hampshire Comic Bash will host the 2021 Nashua Comic Book Festival: Free Admission Special Edition on Saturday, June 12, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the Holiday Inn (9 Northeastern Boulevard, Nashua). According to the event website, there will be plenty of boxes of comic books, original comic art and comic-related collectibles. Masks will be required for all attendees and vendors. See nashuacomicfest.com.

My friend Chris

We all know the old koan: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? The question is said to be an exercise in perception and observation.

My friend Chris is no tree, but there is a certain parallel between him and the timeless question. You see, he is a 39-year veteran high school teacher in a rural and very economically distressed part of northern New England and he is retiring. Considering the demographic of the teaching profession these days, Chris could be described as part of the old growth, as the number of colleagues whose time teaching goes back to the early 1980s is increasingly rare.

Like a long-standing tree, Chris has been a stalwart at his school and in his community. Since his first day in the classroom, he has dressed in a suit and tie. That is something of a rarity in schools today. When asked why he has done so, he offers modestly, “It sets an example to the students that what we are doing together is important business and that I should dress to show that.”

While formal in dress, Chris is compassionate and deeply solicitous for his students. The door to his classroom has a sign: “You are most welcome here” in German and French, the languages he teaches. As a result, his classroom is a sanctuary, especially for those who sometimes just need a break from the tensions and challenges of high school daily life. He has been a counselor, cheerleader, and ever faithful confidant for nearly three generations of students.

Knowing how important dress and appearance are, not only for social events, job interviews or just self-esteem, each year Chris sets up a rack of his suits, shirts and ties in his classroom so that students can choose items that their modest financial resources could not stretch to buy.

Annually, Chris has taken 20 to 30 of the students at his school on a two-week study trip to Germany and France. For virtually all of them, this is their first trip abroad, and for some, even out of state. He has photographs of students’ faces as they get their first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame. For many, the trip under his tutelage is the spark that generates a career trajectory, whether to travel or, for some, to follow Chris in his profession.

Alums of his classes are now published writers, teachers, entrepreneurs and civic leaders. News of his impending retirement has triggered a flood of emails and calls.

Yes, when a great tree falls, there should be a sound, a very loud and appreciative one. Thank you, Chris.

A Quiet Place Part II (PG-13) | Cruella (PG-13) | Plan B (TV-MA)

A Quiet Place Part II (PG-13)

The soft-steps-and-muffled-screams family from the first movie must seek a new safe haven in A Quiet Place Part II, the sequel to the 2018 horror sci-fi which is screening only in theaters.

After looking back at Day 1 of the invasion of the sound-sensitive giant-stick-insect-y aliens, the movie picks up right where the first one left off, with father Lee (John Krasinski, also the movie’s director) dead, and recently postpartum mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) caring for her newborn and fleeing their burning home with her tween-maybe son Marcus (Noah Jupe) and oldest (I think) child, teen Regan (Millicent Simmonds). Regan holds the key to the discovery made at the end of the last movie, which is that her hearing aid, when put next to a microphone, creates a feedback noise that incapacitates the aliens (who hunt humans using sound, thus the constant need for quiet) and leaves them vulnerable to being shot or otherwise destroyed.

The family heads out, eventually meeting up with Emmett (Cillian Murphy), a friend from before (whom we see in the Day 1 scenes) at a factory that offers some protection in various underground soundproof-ish rooms. He is grizzled and broken and not eager for houseguests, but he takes pity on the whole new baby situation and lets them stay. To distract an injured Marcus, Regan fiddles with a radio lying around Emmett’s lodgings and happens upon a frequency playing “Beyond the Sea” in a loop. Excited about the possibility of other people somewhere in the world and a means of broadcasting the alien-defeating sound, Regan starts to form a plan about how to find the radio station. Meanwhile, Evelyn is busy tending to Marcus and trying to figure out how to keep her baby alive with the small oxygen tank and soundproof bassinet that the family constructed.

Eventually, we get two and sometimes three groupings of characters, facing various dangers on their assorted missions. Even more than in the last movie, Regan becomes the core of the movie here — she is the one thinking of the future when the adults around her are just surviving in the moment.

Part II does many of the same things the first movie did in terms of building suspense, creating terror in small moments and making the emotions of family and parenting part of the fabric of what’s happening. It is, like, 80, maybe 85 percent as successful as the first movie at doing all of this in a way that grabs you and keeps you locked in to the action. I think. I’ll admit that (based on a reread of my review of the first movie) I didn’t find this movie as thoroughly engrossing and entertaining as the last one, but then context is everything. Are the little imperfections here (there is some pretty heavy underlining of plot points; I found myself wondering more about the rules of these aliens than I did in the last movie) more apparent than in the last movie, or am I just in a place where a family surviving worldwide catastrophe is not as much of a fun time at the movies?

All that said, the performances are solid all around. Blunt is really skilled at being this kind of action hero, at blending the emotion of the story with the physicality of whatever struggle her character is dealing with. It gives heft to the role. Simmonds and Murphy do good work, having good fatherly-daughterly chemistry in the part of the story line that puts them together.

I think even if A Quiet Place Part II doesn’t sound like it’s for you right now, it’s worth catching up with at some point if you enjoyed the first movie. B

Rated PG-13 for terror, violence and bloody/disturbing images, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by John Krasinski with a screenplay by Krasinski, A Quiet Place Part II is an hour and 37 minutes long and distributed by Paramount Pictures.

Cruella (PG-13)

Emma Thompson is having a blast, so that’s at least something, in Cruella, the more than two-hour-long Cruella de Vil origin story newly out in theaters and on Disney+.

As a child, little Estella (Tipper Seifert-Cleveland) already had that black-and-white-cookie hairstyle and a feisty nature that made her a fighter when bullies inevitably picked on her. But she had a strong sense of self, a good friend in a young girl named Anita (Florisa Kamara) and a staunchly supportive mother (Emily Beecham).

Tragedy landed Estella alone in London, where she met the young grifters Jasper (Ziggy Gardner) and Horace (Joseph MacDonald). Together with their dogs Buddy and Wink, they create a sort of found family that continues to work together, picking pockets and committing petty thefts, until Estella is Emma Stone aged. But grown-up Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser) can see that Estella still dreams of something more for her life, something of the glamour and fashion she loved so much in her youth. They finagle a spot for her at a posh department store, which helps her get a job for the respected and feared fashion designer The Baroness (Emma Thompson). The Baroness is the top of the heap of the London fashion scene and Estella is at first delighted to work for her. But the more she learns about the Baroness, the more she finds herself harboring thoughts of domination and revenge.

Enter Cruella.

Cruella is what Estella’s mother called her naughtier impulses during her childhood and, after trying so hard to keep a rein on her love of mayhem (most visible in her dying of her hair one solid color), Estella decides to let her hair return to its natural state and let Cruella take the wheel.

With the general meanness of Cruella (saying genuinely mean things to her found family, for example) and all the talk of murder, this is not a kid-friendly movie, in the elementary-school sense of kid. And that’s fine —not everything has to be for everybody. But I did find myself wondering who this movie is for. (I mean, who are any of these live-action Disney movies for other than the studio executives who hope that the combination of known intellectual property and bankable stars equals money and just keep tossing the dice on these things no matter how much they seem like “meh” ideas from the get-go.)

Even so, 90 minutes of this movie, 90 minutes that leaned into the movie’s best elements, would be fine. Thompson is snarling and hissing and just having a great time being a baddie, and that by itself can be a joy to behold. The costumes are awesome — I love the Baroness’s classy looks and Cruella’s punk-er takes. The soundtrack uses some of the best 1960s and 1970s music that money can buy the rights to. That’s all fun. Throw in some heisting and some good business from Stone (she has her moments here, even if it feels like the costumes are frequently driving her performance) and you’ve got a fun if forgettable movie.

But Cruella feels like it goes on forever, without adding much to whatever this movie is trying to do with the character (Maleficent her, I’d imagine, so they can wring a Part II out of this story). She’s not the Disney Harley Quinn (which is how it sometimes feels like she’s being positioned), spunky even in her villainy. She’s not really misunderstood —she’s a jerk, on purpose, because she likes it for a lot of the movie, which doesn’t make her the wronged anti-hero I feel like the movie sometimes wants to paint her as. She’s just, well, a cartoon villain, who, like many a Disney villain, is most interesting in her wardrobe and one-liners, but that doesn’t feel like enough to sustain two hours and 14 minutes. C+

Rated PG-13 for some violence and thematic elements, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Craig Gillespie with a screenplay by Dana Fox and Tony McNamara, Cruella is two hours and 14 minutes long and is distributed by Walt Disney via Disney+ (for $29.99) and in theaters.

Plan B (TV-MA)

High school best friends hit the road in search of the morning-after pill in Plan B, a movie directed by Natalie Morales.

Diligent student Sunny (Kuhoo Verma) is supposed to spend the weekend studying, but when her mom Rosie (Jolly Abraham) goes out of town, Sunny’s best friend, Lupe (Victoria Moroles), convinces her to throw a party. The party is your standard high school movie, spur-of-the-moment scheme to allow Sunny to hang out with Hunter (Michael Provost), her longtime crush.

The party does not go as planned — Hunter leaves with another girl, Lupe’s crush Logan never shows and Sunny, sad and tipsy from a horrible punch bowl concoction of wines, pickle juice and cough syrup, ends up having quick, awkward sex with Kyle (Mason Cook), a boy she isn’t really interested in. The next morning she realizes that there was a problem with the condom and is panicked that she’ll get pregnant and prove correct her mother’s assessment that one mistake can destroy your whole life. Don’t worry, Lupe reassures her, you can get the Plan B pill.

As is apparently true in real life South Dakota, where this movie takes place, Sunny can’t get the Plan B pill because the pharmacist at the drugstore declines to give it to her under the “conscience clause.” To the Planned Parenthood!, Sunny decides, except it is three hours away in Rapid City and she technically doesn’t have a car. Thus begins a chain of events — taking her mother’s car, getting lost, a pit stop so Lupe can see Logan — that leads to Sunny deciding whether to take a random pill sold by a random dude who says it’s probably Plan B, maybe speed but almost certainly not PCP.

Not unlike Unpregnant from last year, Plan B mixes comic riffs on road movie and teen movie cliches with sobering moments that make the movie’s point without turning it into an op-ed. And, also as with Unpregnant, the girls’ relationship — its strengths, its weaknesses, what they mean to each other — is the heart of the story. I like the way it shows Sunny and Lupe as close and able to be more than their parents’ expectations or their school selves with each other and yet they still wrestle with things they can’t tell each other. The movie — and the charming performances by Verma and Moroles — makes these two girls full multilayered people, with more to them than just a teen-movie type. B+

Rated TV-MA, according to Hulu. Directed by Natalie Morales with a screenplay by Joshua Levy and Prathiksha Srinivasan, Plan B is an hour and 47 minutes long and is available on Hulu.

Featured photo: A Quiet Place Part II (PG-13)

Shop (and eat) local

Fresh Start Farms to open centralized “food hub” and market

A new store set to open in the heart of Manchester this weekend will be a one-stop shopping spot for locally sourced produce, meats, dairy products and various non-perishables — and it’s also going to serve as a centralized “food hub” and production area for Fresh Start Farms, a collective of more than 20 immigrant and refugee farmers in New Hampshire.

Fresh Start Market, a year-round retail space due to hold its grand opening on Saturday, June 5, was born out of a partnership between NeighborWorks Southern New Hampshire and the Organization for Refugee & Immigrant Success. According to Fresh Start Farms program director Jameson Small, the market has been more than a year in the making.

“NeighborWorks had bought the building at an auction, and they started finding out from people what they wanted in the community. The idea of a grocery store kept popping up,” Small said. “So they had approached us, and at the time, we were just farming in Dunbarton and Concord. We had no storefront, we had no refrigeration and no real wash stations.”

According to Small, the pandemic caused Fresh Start Farms to pivot its CSA model to mostly home deliveries. The kitchen side of the market was finished first to meet that demand.

The grand opening of Fresh Start Market’s retail space coincides with NeighborWorks Southern New Hampshire’s Wellness Weekend. But in the weeks to follow, Small said, it will be open only on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons to start, with the goal to expand later this year.

The market features a wide range of items from Fresh Start Farms farmers and around 85 other food producers across mostly New Hampshire and Vermont, from fruits and vegetables to milk, eggs, cheeses, maple syrups, cooking oils, grain products and more. A grab-and-go model is expected too, including a small offering of fresh fruit smoothies.

Small also noted that Fresh Start Market is the first and only Double Up Food Bucks location in the city of Manchester for low-income shoppers.

“Part of our total mission is food access,” he said, “so if you have a SNAP or EBT card, you can get any fresh fruit and vegetable here for half the price. … So we’re even able to compete with some of the larger entities on specific items.”

Fresh Start Farms, meanwhile, will continue to sell its produce at several farmers markets throughout New Hampshire, while a mobile market will also make weekly stops this summer.

Fresh Start Market
Grand opening is Saturday, June 5, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Where: 150 Spruce St., Manchester
Hours: After June 5, hours will be Wednesday and Thursday from 2 to 6 p.m., and will likely expand into the summer and fall months
More info: Visit freshstartfarmsnh.com, follow them on Facebook and Instagram @freshstartfarmsnh or call 606-2663

Feautred photo: Fresh Start Market. Courtesy photo.

On The Job – Missy Gaffney

Missy Gaffney

Esthetician and business owner

Missy Gaffney is an esthetician and owner of three health and beauty businesses — The Skin & Body Spa, The Hair Company and The Medical Skin Clinic — all located in Nashua.

Explain your job.

It’s different every day. I could be interviewing [potential employees], proofing or brainstorming marketing plans, ordering [products] or meeting with the managers and delegating [tasks]. … I constantly have my face around at all the different businesses, interacting with all of our employees and making sure everything is perfect for the clients.

How long have you had this job?

We’ve had The Skin & Body Spa for almost 14 years, The Hair Company for almost six years, and The Medical Skin Clinic for almost two years.

What led you to this career field and your current job?

I struggled with acne myself as a kid, so my mom would bring me to get facials and get good skin care products to help my skin, and I really noticed such a huge difference. I always had the dream of one day being an esthetician and helping people like myself [improve] their skin and boost their confidence. I worked as an esthetician for other [businesses] for years, but I always had a vision of opening my own, and that I could [run] it really well.

What kind of education or training did you need?

I have a bachelor of science degree, and then I went to esthetics school for 450 hours. … I was constantly going to continuing education classes after that, and still go to a lot of conferences on spa management and business management.

What is your typical at-work uniform or attire?

Business-casual.

How has your job changed over the last year?

We’ve had to really home in on what we need to do to create a safe and comfortable environment for our clients as well as our team members, without getting too overwhelmed. It has taken a lot of patience and research and being proactive to make sure that we always have all the right policies and the proper PPE.

What do you wish you’d known at the beginning of your career?

To not get worked up over every little thing that goes wrong. There are always going to be problems, and there are always going to be solutions. Think, ‘How am I going to solve this?’ instead of stressing out about it.

What do you wish other people knew about your job?

Some people are scared [to go to a spa] because they think it’s going to be a snobby environment, but I would want them to know that they never have to worry; we’re very non-judgmental, and very good at putting people at ease and making them feel very welcome.

What was the first job you ever had?

Working in a clothing store, folding clothes.

What’s the best piece of work-related advice you’ve ever received?

When you’re stressing about something, ask yourself, ‘Is this really going to matter in five years?’ If it’s not, it’s easier to let it go.

Five favorites
Favorite book: Tuesdays with Morrie
Favorite movie: The Sound of Music
Favorite music: Folk
Favorite food: Japanese
Favorite thing about NH: All the options; I can get to a little historic town, skiing [destination], Boston or the beach without a lot of [travel] time.

Featured photo: Missy Gaffney

The Main attraction

Two new sculptures to be installed in downtown Concord

Downtown Concord becomes an open-air art gallery through Art on Main, an initiative by the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce’s Creative Concord committee to commission public outdoor sculptures by professional sculptors from around New England for installation along Main Street.

Now in its fourth year, Art on Main is bringing in two new sculptures to be installed this month.

Both were created by Chris Plaisted, a Connecticut-based artist who was born and raised in Alstead, New Hampshire.

“This will sort of be a homecoming for me,” Plaisted said. “I still have many friends and family in the area, so part of the intent in participating was the hope that they will get to see my work.”

Plaisted’s large-scale, welded steel sculptures have appeared in dozens of outdoor art exhibits across the country. He described his work as being “primarily abstract, but often with figurative elements.”

His Concord-bound piece “Into the Wind” is a 12-foot-tall, 5-foot-wide and 5-foot-deep red steel sculpture that was prompted, Plaisted said, by a conversation he had with his friend about their shared sailing hobby and summer plans.

“I got to thinking about making a piece inspired by our boats, so this piece is an abstract of a sail cutting the wind,” he said.

At 9 feet tall, 32 inches wide and 32 inches deep, “Sunflower from Mars” is also red steel and was born out of Plaisted’s interest in the 1938 radio broadcast The War of the Worlds.

“The piece was then inspired by the idea that, what if Martians had actually landed in the U.S. and planted a seed? What would they have left behind?” he said.

The sculptures installed through Art on Main remain in Concord for one to two years, at the discretion of the Creative Concord committee. Plaisted’s piece will join several pieces that have been renewed for a second year. All are available to purchase, with 30 percent of the proceeds to be placed in a dedicated fund for Concord to acquire more permanent public art.

“The idea is that we’re bringing in new pieces on a fairly regular basis to keep sort of a fresh appearance of new art coming into the downtown,” Concord Chamber President Tim Sink said.

Sculptors are found through a call for art put out by Creative Concord in the winter. By the end of April, the committee makes its decision.

“We’re not looking for statues of George Washington,” Sink said. “We’re looking for [pieces] that are more non-traditional; that are large and capture your eye as you’re walking or driving down Main Street; and that are rugged and durable — something that kids could climb on.”

The best way to experience the art, Sink said, is to park on South Main Street and walk, starting in the area of the Capitol Center for the Arts, up to the New Hampshire Statehouse on North Main Street.

“It’s a very pedestrian-friendly atmosphere with lots of outdoor dining and shops, and you’ll pass these pieces along the way,” he said.

You can engage more with the pieces on Creative Concord’s website, which features professionally shot videos of the artists introducing themselves and discussing their sculptures. Sink said Creative Concord is looking to expand the Art on Main initiative to have a new mural created in downtown every year. They’re on track to have one completed by the end of the summer, though they haven’t chosen a location yet.

“We have plenty of canvases,” Sink said. “If you walk through downtown, you’ll see there are probably 14 or so sides of buildings that are highly visible and would be great for a mural.”

Visit concordnhchamber.com/creativeconcord and visitconcord-nh.com/art-in-concord, or call the Chamber at 224-2508.

Featured photo: “Into the Wind” by Chris Plaisted. Courtesy photo.

Stay in the loop!

Get FREE weekly briefs on local food, music,

arts, and more across southern New Hampshire!