CALLS FOR ENTRIES: ArtFest vendors and another Gallery show
This year, Bloomsburg’s annual ArtFest has a new producing organization, the Exchange. Dedicated to bringing the arts to all communities throughout our region, the Exchange (then the Moose Exchange) used to host the wintertime ArtWalk-In; as Downtown Bloomsburg Inc. reorients its priorities around a strategic plan for Main Street, the Exchange has stepped in to make ArtFest an even more successful event.
The ninth annual ArtFest will take place on Saturday, the 6th of August, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in its traditional location on Center Street between Main and Thirds Streets. With good attendance in all prior years, we look forward to a repeat showing this summer.
As always, ArtFest will showcase regional artists’ original work on this one day, accompanied by live music and activities for the whole family. A summertime art party, ArtFest draws families from well beyond Bloomsburg, and both art and food vendors have done well here year after year.
Each artist pays an $80 booth fee for a 10×10 space. (Two artists, each juried in, may share a single booth for $100.) Food vendors pay $100. The fee covers the cost of ads in local and regional print and radio outlets, and the printing of posters and flyers. We also encourage vendors to promote the event themselves, using a postcard mailing and/or social media.
If you would like to show and sell at ArtFest, please download the application and other information here. Then, e-mail 3-5 jpeg images of your work (each no larger than 1 MB at 72 dpi, no larger than 1920 pixels on the longer side, with the artist’s last name as part of each file name; food vendors do not need to provide images but may for our promotional purposes) to Exchange@ExchangeArts.org and mail a signed copy of the attached application to 24 East Main Street, Bloomsburg PA 17815, no later than Friday, June 3rd, 2016. After receiving an acceptance notification from ArtFest via e-mail or phone (no later than Friday, June 17th, 2016), participating artists MUST submit the booth fee by Friday, July 8, 2016. We will accept no late fees and will reassign any unpaid space(s).
Please get in touch with Oren B. Helbok at Exchange@ExchangeArts.org or 570-317-2596 if you have any questions about ArtFest.
Looking forward to seeing you in Bloomsburg in August!
Come visit us at the Exchange
The week of April 18th, you’ll find us here 11-5 Monday; 1-6 Tuesday; 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, including the CD release party for Mike Hickey’s “55 and Sunny”, 7-8:30; 10-5:30 Thursday; noon-2 Friday; and 6-8 p.m. Saturday for the reception for “Portraits of Our Community”.
Hours vary week to week; see our calendar for details.
Now in the Gallery: “Portraits of Our Community“
Thanks to Stairwell Gallery committee members Chad Andrews, Brock Dent, April Gilliland, Jason Godeke (stepped down, 10/15), Michelle Hintz, Dave Kube, Otto Kurecian, Ron Lambert, Jef McGreevy (stepped down, 10/15), Sue O’Donnell (stepped down, 6/14), Nick Rusnock, and Katie Starliper for organizing and hanging all of the shows here.
Art classes for everyone, at the Antler! Brock Dent, once a Moose Exchange tenant and now part of the Stairwell Gallery committee, will lead classes in drawing and painting on Thursdays: ages 5-8yrs – 5 p.m.; ages 9-12 – 6 p.m.; ages 13+ – 7 p.m.; adults – 8 p.m.
Sessions are 50 minutes, $25 per session ($10 discount for each additional sibling)
Please contact Brock to sign up: by e-mail at brockdent@gmail.com, by phone at 570-854-6219
Now open: “The Blues Show”
In conjunction with the third annual Destination Blues Music Festival, taking place in Columbia and Montour Counties February 19th-21st, 2016, the Stairwell Gallery hosts “The Blues Show” now through April 1st.
We have hung work in many mediua — 2-D or 3-D — that fits the Blues/blue theme: paintings of Blues musicians performing, photographs in many shades of the color blue, a cigar-box guitar, a handwoven rug, quilts, and more. If it says “Blues” or “blue” to you, it works for us.
The reception took place on Friday, February 19th, 5-9 p.m., during the opening evening of the Festival, as seventeen venues in the two counties hosted Blues musicians and FREE buses transport music lovers among them. Venues with music on Main Street in Bloomsburg included Steph’s Subs, Balzano’s, the Capitol, Rose Marie’s, Fog & Flame, Filet 18, and West End Ale Haus, as well as Nick Rusnock playing here at the Exchange. On Saturday the 20th, we opened from 10 to 3, as musicians perform at Fog & Flame and Balzano’s up Main Street from the Gallery.
Grammy Nominee at Destination Blues
On February 19th, 20th, and 21st, 2016, Columbia & Montour Counties in Central Pennsylvania heated up with the third annual Destination Blues music festival. Organized by the Moose Exchange, in partnership with the Briggs Farm Blues Festival and the Billtown Blues Association, Destination Blues featured international, national, and regional blues performers at multiple venues, as well as bus transportation among the venues and participating hotels.
Friday, music at more than a dozen venues with bus transportation among all of them AND participating hotels
Saturday, breakfast, lunch and evening blues, with the main event at Bloomsburg’s Caldwell Consistory: eight bands on two stages
And Gospel Blues on Sunday: ALEXIS P. SUTER AND THE MINISTERS OF SOUND in the sanctuary of Wesley United Methodist Church in Downtown Bloomsburg, backed by a LARGE choir of local singers.
Produced by Richard Briggs of the Briggs Farm Blues Festival, Destination Blues receives significant support from Montour and Columbia Counties’ Tourism Funds as administered by the Columbia-Montour Visitors Bureau. The Exchange and DBI thank Montour Commissioners Trevor Finn, Jack Gerst, and Jerry Ward and Columbia Commissioners David Kovach, Rich Ridgway, and Chris Young for their vision and enthusiasm.
