The Paint Factory

History

Founded in 1623, Gloucester is America’s oldest seaport. Though built on fishing, it has also attracted painters, sculptors, poets, adventurers, and remarkable inventors. One of Gloucester’s greatest inventions solved a problem that had plagued ships for centuries: barnacles, worms, and weeds that grew on the vessels’ hulls and slowed their progress.

Tarr and Wonson experimented for years, painting chemical concoctions onto house shingles, then immersing them in Gloucester Harbor until finally, one of their concoctions showed antifouling properties. It was based on copper oxide in tar with napalm.

In 1863, Tarr and Wonson received a patent for their revolutionary bottom paint. By 1870, the first buildings of Tarr and Wonson’s paint manufactory appeared at the end of Rocky Neck.

These two men would never know that their paint, and indeed their buildings, would become such an important part of New England’s history. Painters from around the world came to capture these buildings on canvas, a trend that continues today, making the paint factory one of the most familiar images in New England art.

Restoration

The MA MEPA Office has conducted an in-person site visit and a hybrid consultation session to receive advice and comments from agencies, officials, and citizens regarding which environmental issues, if any, are significant for this project. Opinions as to the extent and significance of possible environmental impact, will be welcome.

Consultation Session Recording:

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/rmKT1vsuN405yoPVuF8oYv6UbCsWvZpmiJTV0qPkREur7yxvheh1sssxQ9p4B1ZW.7mrEZNpn0w9jm7f4
Passcode: CERDwN9?

Community space

We regularly host events where we use art to communicate our research and conservation work, and we also host other community-oriented events at our headquarters at the Paint Factory. When we moved to the area, our new local community made it clear that these buildings were a source of local pride and an essential part of the local history and culture. To this end, we try to get our local community onto the site and into the buildings as much as possible.

After decades of being destitute, preceded by over a century of use as a working industrial paint factory, now, for the first time, the local community can come into the buildings and enjoy them during art shows, music events, makers markets, and so on.

Recently, we have held exhibitions, including I Am More by local artist Amy Kerr about mental health and well-being and the Goetemann Environmental Artist Residency.