SeARTS Meeting of the Artists

Yesterday, I blogged that I would go into more detail about the meeting between the federal government economic assessment, the mayor of Gloucester, and the representatives of nonprofit organizations in Cape Ann. However, for this blog post I want to concentrate on another event that happened later that same afternoon and that also was in the same place, the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester. It was an event that I was able to attend, making it my second time that day I had been at the Cape Ann Museum.

This event was a part of the month long "Partner with an Artist" event that is taking place across all of the Cape Ann. This particular event, sponsored by seARTS, was "PWA 2011 Artists and Partners", in which a group of individual artists gave a presentation about a recent project they had been working on. Each artists came with a group that was helping to sponsor their project.

The first to present was Elizabeth Harty with the Rockport Council on the Aging, showing off her collages comprised of her own art and pictures from 19th century Gloucester. Next up were Kristen Miller and Rob Newton with The Annie and Alchemy Cafe & Bistro, presenting the introduction of a documentary about the WPA murals in Gloucester during the Great Depression they titled "No More Gloomy Sundays". Notably, Kristen Miller, a celloist, composed the music for the film. After that was Abby Ytzen with Capt. Joe & Sons, showing her drawn illustrations of native fish. John Tagiuri with Gloucester Marine Railways presented pictures of old fishing vessels he had taken as a project for the Library of Congress. Last to present was Susan Erony with the Gloucester Writers Center, Ten Pound Island Books and the Sawyer Free Library, explaining how she had been studying local poetry and was inscribing passages from some poems onto bricks.

After the presentations were completed, a Q&A session began with the audience. After this, a member of seARTS who had been acting as MC through the night make an interesting point that I would like to include here. She said that if it wasn't for funding from nonprofit organizations, these artists would be unable to follow their passions and pursue their own artistic projects. This goes to show the effect nonprofits such as seARTS can have on the artistic community of Cape Ann. It also shows the passion that each individual artists had for their work, and how support from nonprofits is essential to help keeping them working.