What happens when a New Jersey community bands together to create artworks for public display? Find out at the Montclair Art Museum and Montclair Public Library, where new, collaborative artworks will be exhibited from mid-December 2024 through early January 2025.
Fourteen volunteer art-making teams have been working since early October 2024, each team creating an original piece, on the community-building theme of “mutual compassion, empathy, respect, and friendship across boundaries or differences.”
The artworks will be unveiled at the Seeing from the Heart exhibition opening and celebration at Montclair Art Museum on Thursday, December 12 from 5-9 p.m. The opening event is free, and the public is invited.
Visitors may interact with the artists and other community members, by writing questions and drawing pictures on “Talk Tix” forms, to be posted online.
“What fun we had doing this,” said Toni Martin, a former reporter and writer, and Montclair resident who participated in an intergenerational team of 5 members, spanning ages from preschool through grandparent. “Art has always enlivened my existence, but this is my first experience with exhibition.”
The Seeing from the Heart exhibition opening event is concurrent with Montclair Art Museum’s annual Winter Art Market, featuring 21 local artists and artisans selling fine art and hand-crafted gifts, and with MAM’s monthly Free First Thursday activities, in which visitors may participate in holiday greeting-card making during the evening.
After the December 12 exhibition opening, some of the artworks will stay on public view at Montclair Art Museum through January 5, in and around the Cornerstone Cafe space. Other artworks will go on exhibition at Montclair Public Library from December 16 through January 5.
A cohort of 44 local residents completed the Seeing from the Heart art-making festival, creating eleven collaborative artworks. In addition, 32 seventh-grade students at Forest Street Community School in West Orange completed a two-month art curriculum entitled “What Do You Want to Plant in Your Heart” on the same theme, under the guidance of teachers Sophia Kim and Avril Bogle, completing three collaborative mobiles.
“This has been a very unique and fulfilling experience,” said Beth Kearney, an artist from Clifton. Her team created a 3-D mobile from found materials, including an upcycled dressform mannequin.
The Seeing from the Heart festival was initiated and organized by Montclair Mutual Aid — a nonprofit and grassroots group whose mission is building community and fostering an ongoing network of people and groups to help one another meet critical needs. MtcMA activists Jonathan A. Marshall, Madeline Gale, and Reubena Spence pulled together an operating committee comprising artists and leaders from local educational and arts-supporting institutions and businesses.
The vision for Seeing from the Heart is to build social bridges and trust among neighbors, working together on an enjoyable art-making project. In turbulent times, trust is the foundation of community resilience and empowerment.
“I learned so much from my partners,” said Julie Landa, a jewelry artist who recently moved to Montclair. Esther Tanahashi, a Parsippany resident who facilitates the artwork of adults with different abilities, said, “I am only now slowly discovering how deeply tied I am to all living things. What about our human connections? Everyone is affecting and is affected by everyone else.”
To promote creativity and sustainable reuse, the teams constructed their artworks with interesting, donated found materials. Montclair resident and photographer Kate Albright said, “I was invigorated by the challenge of working with found objects.”
Christina Peña, a legal consultant who resides in Montclair, said, “I found inspiration to recreate the soul of our town’s beloved Olmstead Oak. I included pieces of the deceased tree as well as found objects.”
Co-sponsoring organizations, who provided meeting space and studios for the art-making teams, are Montclair Art Museum, Montclair Public Library, Eclectic Chic Boutique, Mellowworks, The Space, Keep Creating Art Wellness Center, One River School of Art & Design Montclair, Montclair Inn, Ria X Gallery, Ahava Felicidad Hair & Body, and Lovlee Art Studios.