LAMBERTVILLE: Artist Visions Festival starts with Jim Hamilton

   LAMBERTVILLE — Friends of Lambertville Library will co-present the Artist Visions Festival this summer with select galleries in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and Lambertville, in June, July and August.
   New to this summer’s festival, which will celebrate the creative visions of area filmmakers, musicians, and artists, will be a series of special exhibitions and films at ACME Screening Room, showcasing New Hope and Lambertville’s rich arts history.
   In addition to the arts-history exhibitions at ACME, the festival will feature something for every art enthusiast — from outdoor short film screenings and live music, to indoor art gallery events. All events will be free, with the exception of film screenings and guest speakers at ACME Screening Room.
   The series of special exhibitions at ACME will take place once a month, June, July and August. Each event will feature a photo exhibition highlighting a unique cultural moment in Lambertville-New Hope’s arts history, coupled with a film and guest speaker on a national cultural moment. The featured events are as follows:
   — June 22-24 — “Jim Hamilton’s Design Legacy” photo exhibition in the ACME lobby with a talk by Jim Hamilton, and a film screening of “A Trip to the Moon,” with “The Extraordinary Voyage.” “The Extraordinary Voyage” chronicles the rediscovery and restoration of Méliès’ lost masterpiece, “A Trip to the Moon” featured in the 2011 Oscar winning film, “Hugo.”
   Mr. Hamilton, designer and owner of the Lambertville restaurant, Hamilton’s Grill Room, will speak on his own restoration of two local landmarks — the New Hope Mill and Lambertville’s Pork Yard. Time will be reserved for questions and answers. Guests are invited to share a copy of their own photo of these areas to add to the exhibition’s “community wall.” Reception with light refreshments will follow.
   The “Jim Hamilton’s Design Legacy” photo exhibition will be free to the public and open on its scheduled weekend, Friday and Saturday from 6:30-10 p.m. On Sunday this exhibit will open at 3 p.m. However, admission be charged as part of the ticket to Jim Hamilton’s talk, which starts at 5 p.m., followed by the reception.
   Tickets are $20 for members and $25 for nonmembers and free for those who purchase a new membership using the “buy tickets” link on the schedule listing for this event on the ACME website, www.AcmeScreeningRoom.org..
   — July 20-23 — “New Hope and Lambertville in the 60s and 70s” photo exhibition in ACME lobby, with a screening of “Magic Trip,” a documentary created from the author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Ken Kesey’s footage of his legendary 1964 cross-country road trip to the New York World’s Fair.
   On the trip Mr. Kesey was joined by “The Merry Band of Pranksters,” including Neal Cassady, the American icon immortalized in Kerouac’s “On the Road.”
   ”New Hope and Lambertville in the 60s and 70s” will be co-presented with Lambertville Historical Society and featured photographer Rita Chesterton. The exhibit will feature the “creative characters, colorful events and local landmarks in both these communities during the era of free-love,” said a spokesman.
   Guests are invited to share a copy of their own photo of either town at this time to add to the show “community wall.”
   — Aug. 17-19 — “Return to Music Mountain” photo exhibition in ACME lobby with a screening of “Lost Bohemia,” a documentary about “the eviction of artists from the famous 165 landmark Studios atop Carnegie Hall, which are being turned into offices. The studios have been home to some of the most significant 20th century artists and performers, including: Marilyn Monroe, Isadora Duncan, Barnett Newman, Norman Mailer, Marlon Brando, George Balanchine and Bill Cunningham,” said the spokesman.
   The exhibition, “Return to Music Mountain” will feature images and memorabilia from Lambertville’s long-lived, but now defunct summer theater and live music venue, the “Lambertville Music Circus,” which was produced with the help of a legion of locals, and Director St. John Terrell, and featured the talent of “some of the greatest artists of our time, from Barbara Streisand to Stan Getz to Stevie Wonder,” the spokesman noted.
   Guests are invited to share a copy of their own Music Mountain-related photo to add to the show “community wall.”
   The exhibitions, “New Hope and Lambertville in the 60s and 70s” and “Return to Music Mountain” will be free to the public and will be open on their scheduled weekend, Friday and Saturday from 6:30-10 p.m. and on Sunday from 5-7 p.m.
   To see show times, ticket prices and to purchase tickets for the films in ACME Screening Room’s ARTIST VISIONS series, visit: www.AcmeScreeningRoom.org.
   A festival map with a complete schedule of events will be available for download online at http://www.acmescreeningroom.org (click ARTIST VISIONS logo). A printed copy can be picked up at any of the galleries participating in the festival.
   ACME Screening Room is located at 25 S. Union St., Lambertville.
   Artist Visions Festival is a project of Friends of Lambertville Library, a tax-exempt nonprofit organization. Friends of Lambertville Library would like to extend special thanks to The City of Lambertville, and Wells Fargo Bank for generously providing the space to present this festival, and to River Queen Artisans Gallery for coordinating the participation of area businesses in this festival.
   Funding for the festival has been made possible in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, through funds administered by the Hunterdon County Cultural & Heritage Commission.
    — Ruth Luse