Newark Arts Alliance Harvest Festival

Raindrops do not discourage Terry Foreman of the Newark Arts Alliance and the vendors who gathered on the Academy Building Lawn. Most of the exhibitors had tents, but illustrators Destinie Carbone (www.destiniecarbone.com) and Patrick Waugh (patrickwaugh.com) sat bravely in the rain, using their clear plastic to cover their wares.

I went on my bike because there is no place to park in Newark when UD is in session, and, besides, you had to get wet to see how the vendors felt. The Priapi Gardens and The Farm Stuff had arranged chrysanthemums and purple peppers and beautiful blooming cabbage plants into edible works of art.

Near them, Richard Aldorasi had set up a marbling station where he was able to guide people through a marbling of scarves. Quite a crowd enjoyed watching the process and Foreman reported on Sunday that he had a lot of scarfmakers.

With ten excellent jewelry vendors, it was quite a selection: Kate (http://www.katerobbins.info) and Andrea (andreaswhimsies.etsy.com) shared a booth where I saw a pale green stone called aventurine, a variety of microcrystalline quartz. Karen Hornor (Hidden Moon at beadit@comcast.net) has a special flexible jewelry she makes with neoprene and aluminum. Robanne Palmer (www.robannesbeads.com) has many glass drop earrings which you can also see at the NAA.

I bought cards from artist Karin Lang who had made several of her watercolors into cards and had cards with translucent covers that look like stained glass.

MaryJane Tyrie (Studio 960) was less worried about the rain damaging her fused glass than the others and the picture above is a lovely fused glass dish which was collecting rainwater – making the goldfish seem to be swimming.

Good attendance and good cheer seemed to make the skies clear – rewarding support of local artists.

See newarkartsalliance.org.

Newark Art Loop

Terry Foreman was locking up the door of the Newark Arts Alliance as we strolled up to enjoy our first Newark Art Loop. Apologetic, Foreman offered to reopen just for my friend and me. “The Newark Art Loop is not like the Wilmington Art Loop. The merchants are not hosting an evening like they do in Wilmington,” said Foreman.

Nonetheless, we still found a trove of treasures: At Newark Natural Foods, the delicate gouaches by Barbara Paul Selby had contrasting styles: the full-colored, delicate pastel effect and a gouache of green and blue reminiscent of book illustrations.

At Adria Café, Yaprak Soysal’s photographs showed his mastery of capturing reflections on water and the detail of enlarged flowers.

Samuel Coppola’s technique of intricately detailed color and pencil work (see black and white sketch above) is an interesting contrast to his fantasy works, which had less appeal for me than the junk food on display in Cereal Bowl where the works are being shown.

Gecko does a regular exhibit of jewelry for each monthly loop: Lisette Ffolkes’ necklaces of jointed Chinese-style fish on a double necklace are worth seeing. A brief tour of Cucina di Napoli left me hungry to see more of Nancy Williams Woodward’s work in acrylic. Caffe Gelato featured acrylics by Karin Lang – all scenes of Greece in a Mediterranean blue and white. Striking, but I felt they priced a bit high.

The Newark Arts Alliance will have a reception for the artists in the September show juried by Yolanda Chetwin on September 11 from 6 to 8 p.m.

See www.newarkartsalliance.org.

Newark Arts Alliance

On June 23, a visit to the Newark Arts Alliance finds Nancy Breslin having finished a session on Artist Self-Promotion and Doortje Shover raving about it.

 

Terry Foreman has this as one of myriad activities she manages to run in the leanest of times.   “We still have Camp Imagine, but we have cut all the fat,” she said. 

 

The NAA has more than just visual arts – they have open mike poetry nights, acoustic jams, music performances, children’s writers groups and even fibers and embellishment groups.

 

A courageous organization championing art for all is well worth the visit. 

 

See www.newarkartsalliance.org.