Director’s Statement

In early spring of this year I was amused when I heard the word “pivot” from so many of my arts-professional colleagues, as I was more than pivoting. I was spinning, carefully evaluating with each week the future of the 34th Annual Emeryville Art Exhibition. With all of our usual routines upended; people turned to music, film, literature, on-line museum tours and theatre performances to help carry them through these challenging times. They turned to the arts. As the summer months arrived, it became more and more apparent that a virtual exhibition might be the only way forward for the arts in Emeryville this fall — but how? How to safely honor our arts community and engage our audience and community in the time of Covid.  Encouragement from the City of Emeryville and from our Celebration Board and Operating Committee helped to propel us forward. We had no idea what it might take to pursue these goals but were committed to the effort.

This year, as always, I thank my Board and Committee for their energy and insight and offers of volunteerism though 2020 had us, of necessity, turning more deeply to new resources and new tools.

All of our consultants stepped up to the plate giving to our event 120% as did our artists, curator Kathleen Hanna and jurors Kathryn Funk and Christine Koppes. Our publicist Genevieve Antaky suggested the idea of a virtual opening night to our planning group and graphic designer Suzanne Anderson-Carey posed the idea of exhibition artwork on our street banners, online artwork sales, and her total redesign of our website ... all in an effort to bring the arts out into the community. Chad Smalley, Economic Development and Housing Manager, became a part of our planning group and brought us Rotten City Emeryville’s Cultural District support, Emeryville’s Atomic Productions to provide us with a professional promotional video, and U.S. Digital Response volunteers with their skills in the world of the virtual. USDR’s Vaissnavi Shukl, Prince Boucher, Alex Allain, and Eric Kepnach met with us every week for two and a half months to patiently walk us through the technology and the language of the online world. Board member Linda Lee Boyd worked tirelessly on website programming and communication details. With so much to tackle this year, teamwork was paramount, and this group of professionals went above and beyond. I am so grateful to them all.

Thank you to our City Council members for their continued support, City Manager Christine Daniel, City Clerk Sheri Hartz, Economic Development’s Charlie Bryant, Chadrick Smalley, Amber Evans and Emi Thériault, and Public Works’ Mike Roberts. 

And, of course, none of this would be possible without our generous donors, both individual and corporate.

Gratitude to Mayor Christian Patz as our Master of Ceremonies for our virtual opening night and to Council member John Bauters raising a toast to all with Amber and Emi joining us with cameo presentations. Jurors Kathryn Funk and Christine Koppes dropped in with thoughts about their juror experience and their favorable impressions of our artists and our arts’ community. Dorian Bartley and Bob Johns, The doRiaN Mode Duo: Vintage Jazz & Blues recorded special video sessions for us to accompany us throughout the evening.  It was almost like having them there! Behind the scenes, Prince Boucher, Vaissnavi Shukl, and Genevieve Antaky gave us all the right cues and kept the evening moving.  If you didn’t catch all of the evening’s program, you can tune in now to view on our website.

While we may be socially-distanced, we can still remain culturally-connected.  Jump into our website and keep coming back all month as we add new features throughout October. Vote for your favorite work of art, be the first to find all 31 of our art street banners, zoom into Ekphrastic Poetry Readings, go on a virtual tour of an artist’s studio and learn more about their practice.  Then we’ll see you next year in “real” time.

Sharon Wilchar

Credits

Emeryville City Council
Mayor Christian R. Patz
Vice-Mayor Dianne Martinez
Council Member John J. Bauters
Council Member Scott Donahue
Council Member Ally Medina

Emeryville Celebration of the Arts Board of Directors
Ken Schmier, Chair
Frances Gaston, Vice Chair
Linda Lee Boyd
Kava Massih
Pam Mendelsohn
Albert Repola

Director & Project Coordinator
Sharon Wilchar

Art Exhibition Operating Committee
Linda Lee Boyd
Frances Gaston
Kelly Grace
Kava Massih
Pam Mendelsohn
Albert Repola
Ken Schmier
Gwen Souza

Director & Project Coordinator: Sharon Wilchar
Curator: Kathleen Hanna
Publicist: Genevieve Antaky
Graphics & Website Design: Suzanne Anderson-Carey
Website Programming: Linda Lee Boyd
Youth Programming: Theresa Muñoz
Printing: Autumn Press