Art & Music Event

The Second Annual Art&Music Event, an ad hoc art and performance event first held in Franklin Lakes, this year found a home at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Oakland. Curated by Tracy DiTolla, with help from Rick and Suzanne Norman, the event provides a local option for artists to share their work with the public. Last year the event was held in the summer at a private home in Franklin Lakes and took advantage of the warm weather with an indoor/outdoor ambiance. This year, with the choice of the Knights’ Hall, the event moved into a direction many art shows are taking.

Artists and curators are beginning to see the advantages in a long established fact: more people attend art shows in community venues than in museums and galleries. While many people may make an effort to visit a museum or gallery, a substantial number only attend cultural events in a community venue, and this makes Ms. DiTolla’s efforts all the more valuable. People more inclined to attend art in a alternate setting are often very active in volunteer efforts and other community activities, and their participation helps foster the value of art in the community at large.

Ms. DiTolla’s recent collaboration with Oakland’s Knights of Columbus brought to the FLOW boroughs another local option that has become a growing trend. Franklin Lakes Presbyterian Church has a long history of promoting art in it’s well established gallery, and Timber’s restaurant in Oakland recently hosted an art show. This strategy of increasing participation in arts and culture by bringing arts and culture to the places where people go for other reasons is now well established in much of the arts world.

Interest in local art has gone global, despite the contradictory terms. A recent Wall Street Journal article reported on art collectors in America, Italy, and Switzerland who are staying closer to home as they seek out new art work for their collections. Part of this can be ascribed to the recession where collectors are more suspicious of inflated prices based on market trends, but also are seeking to support their own local artists. The new interest in buying local and regional art also offers patrons a more personal connection to the art created by artists who live nearby.

The event, hosted at the Knights of Columbus in Oakland, was also sponsored by Jack & Corine Walker, Patricia & Theresa Walker, and Paul Anderson. Below are bios of the artists involved. Click once to enlarge, and click again at the bottom to enlarge even further.