LACEY – One learned visual art through trial and error and YouTube videos. Another spent years illustrating fashions before putting her artwork largely aside. A retired Spanish teacher decided to try watercolor after looking at the scenery from her boat and thinking she would like to paint it. Nearby, a fiber artist sat surrounded by crocheted garments, colorful patterns and works in progress.
There was no single definition of an artist at the Lacey Arts Community’s Meet the Makers open house. That seemed to be precisely the point.
The Charles A. Smith Community Center filled with paintings, drawings, prints, photography, fiber art and handcrafted pieces as 15 artists demonstrated techniques and talked with a steady stream of visitors.
Lacey Township Recreation Director James Weiland said the evening offered residents a chance to discover local creative talent. “I think it’s just a wonderful opportunity for the public to come out and see all the talented people that we have here in the community,” he said. “It’s really remarkable.”
Different Artists, Different Journeys
Laurence Krupinski, branch manager of the Ocean County Library’s Long Beach Island Branch, has plenty of formal training, just not in the visual art she displayed at the show.
“I’ve done art my whole life, but I’m more of a dancer,” Laurence said. Asked how she developed her visual art skills, she credited “trial and error” and YouTube videos. Laurence began seriously honing her current skills about three years ago.
Laurence’s husband, Daniel Krupinski, health officer for the Long Beach Island Health Department and a skilled carpenter and builder, recently shared his own contribution to the Lacey Township Committee. He built a 110-pound “tiny art gallery” and offered to donate it to the township to display local artwork.
Linda Kostrowski is a retired Spanish teacher who began painting watercolors about five years ago after admiring the scenery from a boat headed toward the island.
“I said, ‘I would love to paint this,’” Kostrowski recalled. “And I went, ‘Okay. So why don’t I do that?’” She began learning online and kept experimenting.
Meredith Davis attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and worked in fashion illustration, including freelance work for Hahnes department store and illustration connected with General Stores in Brick.
Her realistic style later translated into portraiture after she moved to Kentucky and found little opportunity for fashion illustration.
She has begun accepting commissions again after years when there was little time for artwork. At Meet the Makers, Davis worked in pastels and displayed examples of other techniques she has used over the years.
Debbie Chiniquie brought fiber arts into the mix, surrounded by crocheted garments, colorful patterns and pieces in progress. Her techniques included finger crochet, mandalas, spinning and lucet braiding.
Printmaking offered another hands-on attraction. Visitors gathered around as Debbie Iocovelli demonstrated a monotype using a small etching press. Unlike a carefully planned portrait, part of the appeal was not knowing exactly what would appear when the process was finished.
Visitor Kathy Barran, who described herself as a “patron of the arts,” spotted Kimberly Cesaretti among the featured artists and realized she already knew her. Cesaretti had been Barran’s professor at Georgian Court College, and Barran was surprised to discover her former teacher exhibiting in Lacey and that Cesaretti still remembered her name.
The reunion underscored the range of experience in the room, where teachers, students and self-taught artists exhibited side by side.
Art In Just About Every Form
The featured artists were Kimberly Cesaretti, Debbie Chiniquie, Meredith Davis, Debbie Iocovelli, Linda Kostrowski, Laurence Krupinski, Theresa Krupinski, Lisa Melillo, Carol Mittelsdorf, Jim Spaloss, Taffy Spaloss, Lee Stacy, Audrey Stanick, Elisa Waller and Roy Winograd.
Their work included watercolor, acrylics, oils, mixed media, charcoal, graphite, colored pencil, pastels, collage, printmaking, photography, quilting, fiber arts, glass, wood burning and sculpture.
Carol Mittelsdorf initially trained as a sign painter, a career choice encouraged by her father because, as she recalled, it was something she could do throughout her life.
Mittelsdorf later attended the School of Visual Arts in New York and became a photographer, including shooting hot rod races. Her own varied background made her a fitting advocate for a group intended to welcome people working in many different forms.
She said she approached the township about working through recreation “so that we can bring some little culture and a little fun, and so people could meet people from town.”
The idea was not simply to showcase the 15 people already participating. Mittelsdorf wants to find the artists who are still out there.
She described recently discovering a local woodworker who creates intricate clocks and immediately thinking about getting him involved. “This is to get more people involved in saying, come on out and do the arts,” she said.
Mittelsdorf also pointed to Elisa Waller, an art teacher who is helping teach some of the recreation classes, and others involved in printmaking instruction as examples of artists passing their skills along.
An Arts Community Takes Shape
The effort has been developing for about two years through Lacey Township Recreation. Weiland recently told the Township Committee that the department began trying to bring greater attention to the arts locally and that the Lacey Arts Community grew from that effort.
The group has since organized shows, classes and displays. Artwork from one show was moved to the municipal building, and another show is planned for January.
The emphasis is also on making art accessible to people who have never tried it. Fall programming includes beginner drawing and watercolor along with printmaking, colored pencil, decoupage and other workshops. For a community that includes professionally trained artists alongside people who taught themselves online or discovered art later in life, inviting beginners in seems particularly appropriate.
Meet the Makers showed that artists can come from almost anywhere. They can be professionally trained or self-taught, former teachers lifelong creators or people rediscovering talents they had put aside. They can work with paint, pastels, cameras, printing presses, glass, fabric or fiber.
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