By Kate Lynch
Social networking leads to cross-country planning for alumni art show
The deadline for the “first-ever” Bordentown Regional alumni art show is coming up May 31, and alumni planners are hoping for 40 or more artists to make Cranberry Festival 2011 in October a special homecoming. Art will be exhibited at Farnsworth Gallery, Oct. 1-15, 2011.
A group of friends who grew up together in Bordentown, NJ, are inviting alumni of Bordentown Regional High School to submit work for the juried art show. Like many others on social networking sites, four people who grew up together reconnected on Facebook. What’s different about these four people is they are all working artists who live in different parts of the country. Two live and work in North Jersey, one lives in Colorado, and one lives in Washington State. They all graduated from Bordentown Regional High School in the 1970s.
“About a year ago, we started talking about how cool it would be to exhibit our work in our hometown,” said Louise King Reeves of North Brunswick, a photographer and designer in Edison. “I was already exhibiting at a gallery in town, so I offered to check out whether one of the galleries would support a fund-raiser for student scholarships.”
The other art show planners are Kate Lynch, in Washington State, who exhibits photography throughout the Pacific Northwest, Chris Smith Anderson, who teaches and exhibits art in Colorado, and Andy Schmitt, photography department director for the Peters Valley Craft Center.
The group learned that their alma mater, Bordentown Regional High School, was trying to get an alumni association off the ground. They contacted BRHS principal Patrick Lynch and BRHS art teacher Amanda Sexton, and their planning took off from there. Martha Press, owner of Farnsworth Gallery agreed to host the juried show to benefit student scholarships.
“Feels like Home is a celebration of home, whether home is Bordentown or Honolulu,” said art show planner Kate Lynch. “Many of us feel that Bordentown will always be home, even if – like me – we haven’t been there in many years.”
The show is open to all visual artists who attended Bordentown Regional High School or MacFarland High School through 2009. Entries must reflect the theme “Feels like Home,” whether home is Bordentown, Arizona, or Maine. Entry fee is $35 for 1-3 entries and $5 for each additional entry up to five total.
Details and entry form are online: BordentownArt.wordpress.com.