Five Middlesex Community College art students are displaying artwork in the windows of Lowell’s historic Rialto Building. Created as part of the annual Lowell Arts Festival, the paintings, collages and elaborate cut-paper pieces will be on view throughout the month.

Students with artwork on display are Eastman Garcia of Lawrence, Kosta Gregory and Danny Phoun of Lowell, Patrick Munroe of Littleton, and Pai-Fang Lin of Lexington. Lin’s young daughter, Yi Yi, also filled one window with origami paper birds and flowers.

The Rialto Building, located at 240 Central St. in downtown Lowell, is slated to be renovated by the college and will house a performance and community space, as well as dance and theater classrooms.

Built in 1876 as the Boston & Maine Railroad Depot, the two-story brick High Victorian gothic structure housed a number of businesses over the years, including serving as the Rialto Theatre lobby from 1921 until the 1960s. Considered a Lowell landmark, it was saved from demolition by the Lowell Historic Preservation Commission in 1989. The exterior of the building was renovated by Lowell National Historical Park, which transferred ownership to Middlesex in 2008. The college is in the process of acquiring funding for interior renovations.

MCC Art Professor Margaret Rack had the idea to display student work in the Rialto Building’s windows after Arts Festival organizers suggested local schools and colleges create artwork for storefronts in downtown Lowell. "It occurred to me that the Rialto Building would be a nice fit for Middlesex, since the windows are grand and could be filled entirely for a bold statement showcasing our students' work,” said Rack. “It’s also fitting because that is MCC’s future arts building."

Over the summer, Rack and Margaret Swan, Chair of MCC’s Art Department, invited Middlesex students to participate in the site-specific project. “We recommended they consider the past and future use of the building as a possible theme for their designs,” said Swan. “As it turned out, their artwork is a mixture of site-specific work, as well as recent work completed during the spring 2009 semester.”

For more information about the Rialto Windows Project, contact Margaret Swan, Chair of MCC’s Art Department, as swanm@middlesex.mass.edu or 781-280-3803.