Garden State Arts Weekend spotlights New Jersey’s arts, bringing together artists and the spaces where they showcase.
Artist Christine Romanell spearheaded the idea, modeling the weekend after New York’s Upstate Art Weekend, an annual celebration that brings thousands of visitors to art spaces in the New York counties north of The Bronx.
The historic Manufacturer’s Village at 356 Glenwood Ave., East Orange, was the hub for the celebration. The exhibition featured work from more than a dozen artists who have achieved recognition on a national and global scale including Terrell Davis, Jerry Grant, Scott Patterson, Gregg Banks, Cathy Bristol McCoy, Allison Capel, Gwendolyn Jackson, Carol Jenkins, Cassandra Martin, Briana McNeil, Yvonne Onque, Linda Street, Onnie Strother, Nettie Thomas, Dawn Tighe, Gwen Verner, and Bisa Washington.
During the weekend of April 20 and 21, Manufacturers Village invited the public for a Spring Open House, to get a “behind-the-scenes” look at the workspaces of professional artists, woodworkers, designers, photographers, and more.
The free event offered a chance to meet the artists, browse, and purchase original artworks while exploring the well-preserved 19th century architecture of the Manufacturers Village Artist complex.
Catherine Engle Meyer, of Montclair, is an interior designer who began painting during the pandemic. She loves to experience different mediums—acrylic, Japanese paper, oil, and ink. “Very diverse,” she said.
Meyer paints nature, with themes of joy and peace. She studied the history of art and design in college.
Rachel Pruzan, of Maplewood, was showing her series “Stone Roses.”
She works with fire sculpted sheets of recycled plastic which is environmental-friendly and uses the scraps to create sculptural elements for painting.
“My emotions in concrete form,” she said.
Pruzan began painting four years ago and had no official schooling. “I’m self-taught. I don’t follow rules,” she said. “I would like to improve my technical skills. I’m enjoying this phase of my creativity.”
Ai Sogawa Campbell, of Bloomfield, recently created a collage series to capture a sense of transformation.
“Everything in the world is constantly changing,” she said. Influenced by Zen Buddhism, Campbell said she uses nature forms—waves, clouds—as a metaphor. She studied oil painting in Japan and came to the United States in 2005. She works with mixed media.
Tatyana Kazakova, of Verona, lost her son this past summer. She started doing a series of drawings about grief, loss, and family. From that, she moved to work of a bigger size, using mixed media.
“Life has positive and negative,” she said. “Yellow represents light.” She received her masters degree when she was in Moscow, continued her education in Germany, and came to the United States in 2000.
Jill Hellman, of Edgewater, uses mixed media, acrylic, and a variety of other materials in her creations.
“My inner life on canvas,” she said. “My psyche.”
Sometimes text will pop through the many layers of her artwork. Hellman said she’s self-taught and self-directed. She’s taken classes and workshops and is also a psychotherapist. “It’s a great balance,” she said. “It’s deep, unconscious, psychological.”
Wendy Bellermann, of Maplewood, collects raw ochres, which she grinds herself as cave artists did and mixes with plant resins or oils. She treats the background with fiber paste, so viewers can “feel like they’re in a cave” and it’s like “you have a cave wall in your home.” Bellerman studied literature at New York University but taught herself these techniques.
Josh Stout, of Maplewood, works with jade.
“It’s a very hard, durable stone,” he said. “It will last forever. It will be there in a thousand years.”
Stout is a biology professor at Rutgers. “I always wanted to carve,” he said. “I’m learning to think with my hands.”
To learn more about Manufacturer’s Village Artists, visit: https://www.manufacturersvillageartists.org/.
