First, Photo SJ 2013 kicks off this Wednesday, April 3rd. Two days of photography presentations, workshops and portfolio reviews by some of the area’s best photographers and one who is international. Still time to sign up for a workshop or portfolio review. Keynote presentations by Michel Tcherevkoff on Wednesday and David Todd McCarty on Thursday are free and open to the public. All the details can be found at Photo SJ 2013.

This Friday, April 5th, we will hang a new exhibit in The ArtC Gallery at Shore Medical Center. It’s located on the second floor of their new Surgical Pavilion in Somers Point and is easily accessible by the public. The William Ris Gallery from Stone Harbor and Ocean City’s Accent Gallery will be providing the artwork this time. Opening reception is scheduled for May 10th.

On April 17th ArtC will bring its proposal to rebrand the South Jersey Cultural Alliance before their board. We are anxious to start on this project and if everything goes as planned we will be doing so soon.

On April 22nd we will be presenting to the board of the Atlantic City Alliance. It’s a very exciting project but it’s still too soon to reveal details. We will be joined by Mike Cagno, director of the Noyes Museum of Art and several very talented artists. Wish us luck on this one.

The Art Spirit, ArtC’s documentary on Pat Witt and the Barn Studio of Art in Millville will have an encore showing at the Noyes Museum of Art, 6:30 pm on April 25th.

We are also working on details for a night of art at AtlantiCare’s Gala in May. ArtC proposed that three of the area’s galleries display artwork by local and regional artists and AtlantiCare agreed to it. The art will be for sale and part of the proceeds will go to the AtlantiCare Foundation which of course runs the Healing Arts program. Win/win.

And we should have a new video on our website in a few days. It’s about the Singer Songwriter Cape May event that took place last weekend. Wild Rhino owner and ArtC’s video producer Frank Weiss was asked to create the piece by Exit Zero’s Jack Wright. Susan Allen and I joined them to help film it. The first rough draft by Frank looks really good.

So to those who have told us over the years that we are all wet, we certainly hope you are right.

Thanks for listening.

As many of you know, ArtC provides features on the arts of South Jersey to New Jersey Lifestyle Magazine. The Lifestyle people have been great, they rarely question anything we do and Darla Hendricks, the publisher and art director, has been very patient with our requests for ‘tweaks’. Our latest feature is on Ocean City artist Frank Kallop. I’ve known Frank for almost twenty years and I have always been a big fan of his work. The story by Sterling Brown talks about the diversity of Frank’s work over the years and also the story behind his latest commission, a Modigliani inspired portrait of a woman who happens to be a breast cancer survivor. Frank asked me to photograph the finished piece. It’s absolutely beautiful and the photo of it was submitted along with the story.

Yesterday, Darla sent me an email asking if I had another photo to replace ‘Leanne’. I quickly called her to ask why. She then explained because one nipple was showing it wouldn’t be appropriate for a family magazine. I tried to explain it was art and should be judged by a different criteria but a part of me understood her dilemma. I wasn’t sure what to do. I could call Sterling and ask him to change the story but I really liked what he did – I decided instead to call Frank. To my surprise, he wasn’t surprised. He asked if I could digitally remove the nipple without hurting the integrity of the painting or being insensitive to the woman in the painting. I said I would try, hopefully I succeeded and if I hadn’t told you, you probably would never have guessed. I looked at this as a ‘pick your battles wisely’ situation.

Below is a sneak preview of the feature which will come out in early April. Thanks for listening.

I am over forty. Ok, well over forty. And like many people my age, social media does not come naturally to me. I have a personal facebook page that is covered with cobwebs. I had little interest in Pinterest and until recently I seriously thought Instagram was a new and quicker way to deliver a telegram. My friends crack up when they see me typing a text message. I can hunt and peck, but not necessarily both at the same time. I spell out everything. And I assumed Twitter was just another way for people to keep up with what their favorite celebrity had for breakfast. But even an old dog can learn some new tricks.

With the help of our newest staffer, Susan Allen, ArtC has started to take advantage of the mostly free and amazingly effective tools of social media. Thanks to Susan, we have a new facebook page. We are also tweeting our little hearts out. We have HootSuite and we’re not afraid to use it. And it’s all starting to pay off.

This doesn’t mean we will be ignoring what got us here. We will continue to meet with artists and organizations face-to-face, pick up a phone for actual conversations when we can and attend exhibits and performances at every opportunity. In other words, we will attempt to be as social as possible.

We know running an arts organization is a lot of work. Learning all the tools available to promote it can be daunting. It is important, however, to get the message out there with whatever means possible. And if you have any questions, you can always ask your twelve year old nephew or niece for advice.

Thanks for listening and now if you’ll excuse me, I have a blog to write. Wait…I think I just did.

A few months ago many of ArtC’s facebook friends started asking if I knew who the “Art Critic’ from Ocean City was. They had received a friend request from him and assumed he was working with ArtC. Well, we all know what assuming does. Although I never friended ‘The Art Critic’ on facebook, I have to admit I check out his facebook page from time to time and I even sent him a message once asking him to contact me. I thought it might be interesting to work with him on a few projects. I never heard back.

'The Art Critic' by Norman Rockwell

Recently ‘Art Critic’ made some comments about the Noyes Museum of Art, the new Art Wave art space coming to Atlantic City and a film, “Finding Home’ by ArtC’s Frank Weiss. He called the Noyes mainly a’duck decoy’ museum, claimed the Atlantic City space will be ‘Just another space for lighthouse paintings and decoys!”. He also commented on the front page article in the Press of Atlantic City about Frank and his film by saying, “Really, homeless as a subject matter? Been there done that 40 years ago back when I was in art school, can we please get on with a different subject”.

Mike Cagno, executive director of the Noyes Museum, is also responsible for running the Art Wave space in Atlantic City. He and I have had our disagreements over the years. It’s healthy. But I have never questioned his talents and dedication to the arts of South Jersey. I’ve always respected his willingness to take chances and to seek out the best art locally, regionally and nationally. And as far as Frank Weiss, we have worked together on many projects. He is always professional and never satisfied with anything less than his best. He continues to grow at an amazing rate and ‘Finding Home’ is his best effort to date. It’s a great film and very complex.

Even though I haven’t seen Art Critic’s art school project on the homeless, I would be surprised if it’s anything near what Frank has done. I’d be glad to look at it though. I’d also gladly attend any exhibition of Art Critic’s artwork. So far I haven’t heard of any but if he’s so good, wouldn’t he have his own following? Why would he need to pilfer ArtC’s ‘unsophisticated’ South Jersey friends? Just saying.

Thanks for listening.

For more info go to: artcnow.com/photo

The event is being paid for by the Atlantic City Alliance. My art director, Bill Milnazik, and I then did a quick mock-up with some photos I had done before with a Sterling Brown story to show how this could be creatively promoted with our brochure/magazine idea. We call it a ‘Bragazine’. It could be used as a newspaper supplement, stand alone and online. And for a very reasonable price.

Good art, all kinds of art, isn’t boring. The ACA is spending a lot of money for these kind of events and we applaud them for it. Their printed and video promotional materials need to reflect the creativity and quality of these events and the artists. We feel we have the talent and professionalism to do just that. Not ‘bragging’, just an opinion. Thanks for listening.

Finding Home could also describe the arts in Atlantic City. Our feature story in February’s New Jersey Lifestyle Magazine about the Noyes’ executive director Mike Cagno and The Wave arts retail space in AC signals a major step forward in that city becoming an arts destination.

And Photo SJ 2013 will be coming back to the Richard Stockton College of NJ April 3rd and 4th and we are thrilled to have as featured presenters famed NYC photographer Michel Tcherevkoff and Cape May photographer, and publisher of SALT magazine, David Todd McCarty. There will also be workshops by Frank Weiss and Alex Anton as well as portfolio reviews by McCarty, Tcherevkoff, Anton and The Press of Atlantic City photo editor Vernon Ogrodnek. We will have more details next week.

Lots more happening, more details to come soon. Thanks for listening.

The meeting itself was mostly about the Atlantic City Arts District and the Fung Collaboratives art installations. Mike Cagno from the Noyes Museum, Kim Butler from the CRDA and Liza Cartmell, director of the Atlantic City Alliance, were the featured presenters. All did an excellent job of pointing out the importance of arts and culture in moving Atlantic City forward. However at some point actual regional artists need to be included in these discussions. We aren’t Miami, New York City or even Providence. It can work in Atlantic City if there is a real effort to involve the regional arts community. At least things seem to be finally moving forward. At next week’s CRDA meeting (12/18 at 10 am, again at Dante Hall), plans for the retail space in the new parking garage will be revealed. Over 16,000 sq ft dedicated to arts and arts related businesses. Could be interesting.

Thanks for listening and the video really needs to be viewed full screen. It moves fast.