Grace Church Van Vorst celebrates Art and Community

 By Sally Deering

Back in the late 1980s and early 90s, many considered downtown Jersey City a tough and gritty place for off-the-grid artists and blue-collar workers. It was during that time Grace Church Van Vorst, an Episcopalian parish in downtown Jersey City opened its big red doors on Erie Street, and welcomed local residents, many of them artists, to participate in the Cathedral Arts Festival.

On Sat, April 18, Grace Churchâ€s big red

doors will open once again, this time for the 25^th anniversary of the Cathedral Arts Festival beckoning local residents and friends to once again enjoy a gala of art, entertainment, food and drink. Under the leadership of Reverend Laurie Jean Wurm and congregants Bayla Kallstrom as chairwoman, Amy Elise as head art curator and other dedicated artists and residents, the Cathedral Arts Festival will once again bridge art and community in this neighborhood parish.

“The artist community has a long relationship with Grace Church Van Vorst, a lot of parishioners are artists, one gentleman has his own reggae band,” Rev. Wurm says. “Art is essential to how Grace Church is known in downtown Jersey City. Thatâ€s one thing Grace has always embraced.”

The April 18^th gala will feature refreshments from area restaurants, an open champagne bar, music, dancing, a silent auction and a special performance by members of Nimbus Dance Works of Jersey City. Sixty-five artists will be exhibiting and selling their works with a percentage of each sale going to Grace Churchâ€s special programs like the Grace Senior Center for Healthy Living, and Graceâ€s Breakfast Plus program which provides weekend meals to hungry and homeless people in Jersey City.

“Art is vital to the life of the church,” Reverend Wurm says. “It can be beautiful and unifying. One of the things I love is when the paintings are hung up in the church. For me itâ€s a way to see whatâ€s going on around the world.  Bringing struggles, triumphs and joys that come with paintings and objects of art, and putting them in a sacred setting allows us to see the world in a sacred way.”

COMMUNITY & ART

Chairwoman of the curating committee, Amy Elise, has been a Grace Church congregant since 2008 right after she moved to Jersey City.

“The first time I walked through the doors, I saw art on the walls,” Elise says. “The sanctuary was an incredible space and the service was beautiful. Thereâ€s this creative energy in the church that immediately embraced me. I wanted to be involved.”

Artists from Jersey City and other towns like Newark, Morristown and New York City will be exhibiting their works chosen by Elise and four area curators – Farah Nuradeen (Greenville); Meghan McKee (the Heights); Andrea Artemis Morin (downtown); and Joe Velez (Union City). They picked artists whose work reflects the vibrancy and diversity of Jersey City.

“Jersey City is gentrifying, especially downtown, and that has to be represented because thatâ€s part of our reality,” Elise says. “We also wanted the gritty aspects of Jersey City to be represented in the art. The neighborhood that Grace Church is in currently used to have a different feel. We wanted to respect the artists who are in the downtown neighborhood now and the artists and arts that would have been in the neighborhood 25 years ago.”

 Artists exhibiting at the  25^th Cathedral Arts Festival are Beth Achenbach, Seth Alexander, Paul Andress, Ray Arcadio, Howard Berelson, Miguel Cardenas, Thomas John Carlson, Miroslaw Chelchowski, Jerome China, stephen cimini, Lisa Collodoro, Liz Defrain, Peter Delman, Martin Ramone Delossantos, Dave Dziemian, Dylan Egon, Thomas Egan, Ben Faresich, Eileen Ferara, Mark Finne, Julia Forrest, Geraldine Anderson Gaines, David Gazzo, Jamaila Hernandez, Miguel Hernández, Kayt Hester, Ann Hjelle, Lina Hsiao, Christine Johanns, Norman Kirby, Kortez, Lex Leonard, Béatrice Lebreton, Tatiana Lopez, Beatrice Mady, Julie McHargue, Meghan McKee, Andrea McKenna, Michael F. McKenna, Kathryn Mecca, Rajendra Mehta, Fermin Mendoza, Volha Mikhnevich, Andrea Artemis Morin, Ibou Ndoye, Amy Neufeld, JoanMarie Palmer, Diane Revels, Orlando Reyes, Vira Rublevska, Angelo Rusciano, Monique Sarfity, Lucille Scurti, Anthony Sienkiewicz, Elsie Sienkiewicz, Panda Suwann, Marianne Trent, Janna Maria Vallee, Herman Velez, Joe Velez, Diane Whitebay, M. H. Yaghooti, William Zbylut, and O_O.

Local Jersey City businesses have always been big supporters of the Cathedral Arts Festival and this yearâ€s sponsors include Shoprite – Inserra Supermarkets, Inc., JPMorgan Chase, Capital One Bank and PNC Bank. Some of Jersey Cityâ€s most popular restaurants are participating like GPâ€s Restaurant in Hamilton Square, The Hamilton Inn, The Bistro at Grove Square, Rustique Pizzeria, Gypsy Grill and Tommy2Scoops. The Festival will also have Le Bouquiniste, a mobile art kiosk from Curious Matter, and a live interactive weaving skill-share by relational artist Janna Maria Vallee.

The Cathedral Arts Festival is meant to bring new people into the Grace Church community, Elise says. And with Bayla Kallstrom as chairwoman, everyone is benefiting from her wisdom of what things were like 25 years ago when she and then curator artist Charles Kessler knocked on doors inviting artists to participate.

“Our theme from the very beginning was community, creativity and diversity,” Kallstrom says. “We feel artistry is a universal language. Itâ€s very spiritual. Itâ€s like religion, it floats above. It contains many voices, viewpoints and can pull people together in a spiritual way. A lot of people who came to Grace Church werenâ€t Christians but wanted to be a part of our community and every human being is better when they are part of a community; where people gather to help people become the best they can be. Thatâ€s a committed community and thatâ€s always our goal.”

If you go:

Sat, Apr. 18, 7:30 pm-12 midnight

The 25^th Annual Cathedral Arts Festival Champagne Gala

39 Erie St. (Downtown) JC

Admission:  $40 in advance; $50 at the door.

For tix:  www.gracevanvorst.org

For more info:  (201) 659-2211

 

The post 25th Cathedral Arts Festival to be held Apr. 18th in Downtown Jersey City first appeared on River View Observer.

By Sally Deering

 International street artists like “Big Foot,” “Kid Zoom,” Jason Maloney and Ron English travel the globe creating art on the urban landscape. The artists – all world renown – paint murals on big concrete canvases like bridges, embankment walls and building facades that draw tourists, bring ka-ching to a city’s coffers and transform dilapidated structures into works of art. And because they’re painted on concrete walls, the artists’ works can’t be bought or sold or compete with the gallery sales of their paintings, so they do it all for free.

 

The Jersey City Street Art Initiative is like many public art happenings taking place in cities around the world. English, a Jersey City resident, worked with several street artists on a “Separation Wall” in Palestine and just returned from Miami, Florida where he was invited by real estate mogul Tony Goldwyn to create murals in a neighborhood of broken-down buildings to help transform it into a hip and happening hub of homes and restaurants. (Back in the day, Goldwyn initiated the transformation of Soho in New York City from a neighborhood of abandoned warehouses into a hip and thriving upscale arts district.)

 

“In Miami, that whole neighborhood is being filled with murals by most of the famous street artists on the planet and now they have all these galleries there and really nice restaurants,” English says. “We did murals on a Separation Wall in Palestine and people flew in from Tokyo and Switzerland to see the murals we worked on. Then I go back to Jersey City and wonder why we can’t get something going on here. If we had a big mural project we could attract tons of tourists and catch a boon to the economy.”

 

English took his idea to Greg Brickey, art curator at the Jersey City Office of Cultural Affairs (and also an artist) and Bob Antonicello, Executive Director of the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency who embraced the opportunity to transform some of Jersey City’s blight spots into works of art. Since the Initiative began more than a year ago, several murals have already gone up. On the brick façade of the Hudson County Art Supply building on Newark Avenue and Coles Street, English, Big Foot and Jason Maloney created a whimsical mural depicting a wide-eyed child in shorts and T-shirt emblazoned with an upside-down peace sign. Several artists including

Christian Santiago and Megan Gulick of Jersey City are painting a block-long concrete wall between Oakland and Baldwin facing the General pencil factory. And Big Foot, who English describes as “Rembrandt with a spray can,” has been working on a section of an embankment wall on Baldwin Avenue near Journal Square. Plans are also in the works for a temporary wall gallery in the east plaza of the Powerhouse station in downtown Jersey City.

 “There’s an explosion of street art here,” Brickey says. “Every two weeks another piece goes up. We’re not focusing on one area. We’re looking for spots where the work will fit into the environment and become part of the environment rather than disrupt what’s happening. The plan is really to let it happen in the most organic way possible.”

 On a walk in the Heights section of Jersey City, you’ll come across a mural of bright colored fish, ducks and bunnies on the side of Daisy’s Cleaners, a 20-foot-by-25-foot brick wall on the corner of South Street and Central Avenue. The mural is by Megan Gulick, a local artist who is also one of the artists painting the block-long mural on Baldwin.

 “I like painting big and I thought it would be fun,” Gulick says. “I’m more of an illustrative painter and most of my work has been indoors and I want my stuff to be bigger and I don’t care if they sell. I also want to give back to my community.”

 Gulick says she enjoyed painting the mural on Central Avenue because it got her in touch with the people in the Heights neighborhood.

 “I met a lot of great people in the Heights, some special little kids,” Gulick says. “One little girl gave me a bracelet and I gave her a little fish painting. There’s definitely a community there and I’ve gotten some honest responses to the mural. It’s a very colorful, bright happy piece and a tribute to the Heights.”

 As Executive Director of Jersey City’s Redevelopment Agency, Antonicello sees the Jersey City Art Initiative following in the footsteps of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Project, where street artists paint murals featuring the likenesses of real people who live and work in Philly’s neighborhoods. The mural painted at the Hub, an intersection on Martin Luther King Drive in the Greenville section of Jersey City was a neighborhood-based project painted by street artists, local children and teachers from Snyder High School.

“We call these types of projects soft redevelopment,” Antonicello says. “It’s not bricks and mortar, but just as important because it sends a positive message to the people who work and live in that neighborhood.”

 Jersey City stands right across the Hudson River from New York City, the art capital of the world where internationally-acclaimed artists display their works in museums and galleries and outside in parks and on the city’s streets. According to Antonicello, approximately 30,000 artists (in the visual and performing arts) claim art or art-related work as a large source of their personal income. They make Jersey City their home, in part, because of its proximity to New York. At least that’s how it starts. Then, as the artists settle in they begin to fall in love with the place, make friends with their neighbors, raise families and get involved in their community.

 “We’re lucky in Jersey City to have this community of artists here,” Antonicello says. “They are the invisible hand bringing art to the people. Not everyone can go to a gallery or museum, but if you’re walking down Central Avenue to the Brennan Court House, take a moment when you’re on Baldwin Avenue and look up at the wall. You’re going to be somewhat stunned, 140-yards of top-notch street art in what was a pretty ugly spot.”

 The Jersey City Street Art Initiative is not city funded or federally funded, but accepts private donations that Antonicello says are easily offered by members of the community. When Antonicello approaches local real estate developers for donations, he never gets ‘no’ for an answer, he says, and so far the Initiative has raised $18,000, much of it used for summer job salaries for the kids involved in the Hub mural and stipends for the artists along with paint supplies. Other donations roll in too, like 20-gallons of primer they just received.

The mission of the Jersey City Street Art Initiative is to bring art into local neighborhoods in locations that will have the most impact on the community.

Public art has always been a part of human history,” Antonicello says. “In Jersey City, we don’t have commissioned outdoor art, so how do we fill that need?  We choose good walls, good canvases in highly visible locations where a statement can be made, where people can be uplifted and with the help of artists like Ron English, we’re presenting a high-level of art to the people. We’re not rendering any opinion that people will like everything they see, that’s the nature of art. Leondardo Da Vinci was an artist and so is Kid Zoom and so are the kids who painted the mural at the Hub, in their own right. For the folks going into the Hub, all those kids were Leonardo Da Vincis.”

 For more information, go to www.thejcra.org

Here are some more  photos of Wall Art captured by our photographer Newsboi around Hudson County. These photo’s may not represent wall art affliated with the Jersey City Arts Intiative.

The post WALL ART-INTERNATIONAL STREET ARTISTS TURN JERSEY CITY BLIGHT INTO PRICELESS ART first appeared on River View Observer.