So I'm An Activist Now

The week before last I updated my statements and delivered a few pieces to the gallery.  Last week I stopped by to pick up the postcards for the show and passed out a few.  Today was the opening reception, officially making me an activist.

So early this morning I rolled out of bed and down the hill into Spring Lake, and several blocks later I was at the Community House.  Plenty of street parking that time of day.  I went in the theater side, and while there was no one in the lobby, I did hear voices coming from beyond the back doorway.  In the space that is known as the Brown Room I saw the usual crowd and some refreshments.  Said a quick hello to a few people, then decided to go upstairs to see the show in the Upper Gallery.  There are two short staircases with a landing between them (someone referred to them as the "servant stairs") behind the reception room that lead up to the top floor, and those took me to the gallery.  There were only two other people in there with me, with everyone else still downstairs at the refreshments.  Made a quick circuit of the room, and then found my stuff on the large wall near where I came in, with my two statements in table frames below them, as shown below.

With no action upstairs, I decided to go down and join the crowd in the refreshment area.  There were some mini-muffins, little quiche appetizers, cookies, fruit, brownies, etc.  I knew most of the participating artists already, many from BelmarArts, so most of the conversation was that of people who already knew each other and what our art was about.  The person I ended up talking to the most was Maxine King, who was the person there I've known the longest, going back to our years active in the Printmaking Council of New Jersey, well before she started doing things in Belmar.  So we were commiserating over the end of that earlier organization, which had been drifting away from anything printmaking for years before officially merging this year with another organization that has no use for printmaking.  Sad, but much of what I was doing there I now do in Belmar, and it's a lot closer to where I live.

At one point is was announced we should start moving upstairs, so we gradually made out way up to the gallery, giving the space a more expected look.  Not as crowded as the last show I was a part of in this space (which had over 60 participants), and having the reception on a chilly dreary Sunday morning certainly didn't help us get a crowd.  It seemed that people came and went, and I estimate about 35 or so present most of the time.

The thing that lured all of us upstairs was that one of the 21 participants in the show was not a visual artist, but rather a musical artist, and he was going to go a short performance.  However, it fit in very well with the theme of the exhibition.  Tim McCorry was one of the founding members of BelmarArts, but we haven't seen as much of him lately (though he did have an interesting outfit for our Mad Hatter's Tea Party earlier this year), probably because a lot of his time has been devoted to a new project- the creation of a Broadway musical.  It's called Coyote the Musical and it's about human smuggling across the border and a lot of related issues and concerns.  It turns out that getting a musical off the ground is quite a slog, and he has spent years writing songs, staging readings, raising money, etc.  He first played songs for us at the Boatworks years ago, but tells me the process is still working toward the goal.

The reception was scheduled to end around noon, and I departed shortly before then to take care of some errands and get on with my busy day.  The Artists/ACTIVISTS show remains on display though March 30. 2018 at the Spring Lake Community House, 300 Madison Avenue there in town, officially listed as open noon to 3pm Monday to Saturday, and during theater performances, but I have found the doors unlocked at other times, so you can always go and take your chances.