Kutztown Community Partnership’s first annual Kutztown Art Crawl was dampened by the rain on Thursday, April 28.
The event was held from 5 to 8 p.m. at Kutztown businesses and restaurants, followed by a social at Kutztown Tavern until 10 p.m. The art remained on display until Saturday, April 30.
“Weather significantly affected attendance,” said Jim Springer of KCP. “There’s two ways to look at it. With the rain, people spend a little more time in the stores. You have a nice foundation to build on. It’s not that this is not successful; it’s successful in to so many other ways that we can look forward to doing it again. That’s the success of it.”
Springer is positive about the event’s future, hoping the Art Crawl will grow and become a biannual event.
“Last fall we did the Chocolate Crawl and that was hugely successful,” said Springer, owner of Dunkleberger’s Jewelers and one of the organizers of the crawl with Kelley Neyhart, Reno Unger and Nancy Brooks of KCP. “I thought this is a great format to introduce and share art. Our community and surrounding areas are filled with artists. What a better place to show off what the artists can do.”
The Chocolate Crawl included 10 participating businesses. The Art Crawl had 23 participating businesses and about 27 artists. Ceramics, crafts and art from the students of Kutztown University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts were represented.
“Kutztown has a lot of neat things to offer people so this gives an opportunity to engage, go into the stores… it’s a nice way to experience the different shops in town,” said Springer. “I think we have a nice foundation here to expand on.”
He said KCP is talking about hosting the event again in the fall, possibly in October.
“It gets people to walk and to discover the different stores,” said Springer. “The whole idea is to promote Kutztown stores, promote the artists and promote business as a whole but also Kutztown as a whole.”
Art crawl attendees were provided a map of participating stores. Many of the businesses provided refreshments.
“We think it’s a good idea because we normally wouldn’t have gone out of our way to go to certain shops so this is a nice opening,” said Kutztown resident Amy Sheller.
“We live right across Bamboula but we’ve never been there so it got us out there,” said her husband, Jim Herman.
They heard about the event from Springer.
“I’m an art enthusiast so it seemed kind of up our alley,” said Sheller. “I think it’ll be nice to see art because it’s not something you typically encounter.”
“We wanted to check out the local artists,” said Herman.
Participating artists included painter Wendy Hall at Adam n’ Eve, African Art at Bamboula, photography by Reno Unger at Basin Street, Johnathan Galantino at Colisanti, visual artist and painter Marilyn Fox at Dream Vacations, painter Jan Crooker at Dunkleberger’s Jewelers, Eckhaus Gallery Show, Kathi Ember at Firefly, Amy Langman Photography at Haas Financial, textiles by Kris Teurk at Jackie and Daughter Flower Shop, photography by Lee Foeppel at KCP, Lucky 13 Gallery Show, painter Ron Emboden at Main Street Inn, ceramics by Jim Chaney at Mammas Delight, sculptor Hank Dicco at New Arts Program, painter Jake Bullock at Paisley & Company, photography by Joel Seidel at Pops Malt Shoppe, painter Jonathan Bond at Publishing House, illustrator and author Rachel Yoder at Sorrelli Jewelry, The Vault Graphic Comics Art, wood art by Jonathan Nigro at Uptown Espresso, and painter Jake Bullock at Young Ones.
Kutztown painter Jan Crooker displayed her acrylic still life paintings at Dunkleberger’s Jewelers.
“I think it’s a great event when people can come out to support local artists. I wish we didn’t have rain, I think we’d have more people but it’s nice to see everybody,” said Crooker.
Kutztown artist Kris Teurk displayed her textiles at Jackie and Daughter Flower Shop. When she heard about the event, Teurk said she jumped on the opportunity. She never had the time to create her own inventory, usually making gifts or making pieces that would sell right away. Tuerk and Jackie and Daughter owner Shawn Brown have been friends for about 25 years and Tuerk has always wanted to sell her work at the shop.
“It correlates; it kind of works together,” said Tuerk. “I had two months to come up with an inventory so every weekend and as soon as I came home from school I’d be sewing away.”
“And, of course, the educator in me brought all of my demonstrations so I could teach people how I make my wet felt work.”
Tuerk said the Art Crawl is a great event but the weather must have kept everyone away. She also suggested for future Art Crawl events that the artists be listed in promotional materials and be given promotional items to hand out to their followers to make the event bigger.
“I like what Kutztown’s doing, lots of different events,” she said.
For the Art Crawl, she loves that attendees can go from business to business within walking distance.
“I think it’s a nice collaborative work,” said Tuerk.
Kutztown couple Larry and Doris Schappell viewed Tuerk’s art at Jackie and Daughter. Tuerk even demonstrated and instructed on how she creates her wet felt art.
“I think (the Art Crawl) is a cool idea. Unfortunately with the weather it’s a little discouraging but I think it’s a neat idea just walking downtown and meeting people and seeing the artists,” said Doris.
Her favorite part was the shopping, both at the stores and buying from the artists.
