The club collaborates with a number of arts organizations and sponsors for the one day block party
The Art Club Hammonton was born “to create a social group to attract artists to Hammonton and create more live arts experiences in the area.”
The Art Club Hammonton holds an annual Arts and Music Festival, which brings the community together for the arts.
That was the mission, according to founder Don Swenson. It was the beginning of March 2020. BUT, we all know what happened in mid-March of that year. The COVD-19 pandemic essentially shut everything down. Womp womp.
Was that the end of the idea for Art Club Hammonton? No, no. Swenson’s art wheels kept on turning.
Enter, an Art Club Live broadcast, which brought art into people’s homes when they couldn’t venture out into the community. And voilá, Art Club Hammonton has stayed alive throughout the pandemic.
“It was great to form a connection with other local artists,” Swenson said.
The Art Club eventually grew to a group of artists focused on building relationships in the community, teaching, marketing, and strategizing for ways to showcase their work. The club now includes visual artists, painters, photographers, a comic book illustrator and a nature printer, among others.
In 2021, the Art Club organized the first Hammonton Arts and Music Festival – a one-day block party – with the help and support of other arts organizations in the community and drew a crowd of 750 people.
“It was a huge source of joy seeing how many people were interested in art and emphasized our goal to help people realize that art is not just something you hang on the wall,” says Swenson. “By forming the Art Club we’ve built friendships as well as a supportive community, and we’re thrilled to support the growing art scene in Hammonton.”
This year, it was back once again as a mecca for arts and entertainment during its third year on May 20. The rain date was May 21.
The Art Cub Hammonton collaborates with MainStreet Hammonton, the Hammonton Arts Center, the Eagle Theater, Hammonton Makers, and numerous additional sponsors for the one-day block party.
The party this year featured live music from The Looms, The Chris Rockwell Collective, ZeeLo, and the Honeytunes. Several local artists offered demos of their skills and crafts, including a muralist, nature printing, life drawing, and a live welding demonstration. More than 25 art vendors set up shop along Horton Street to showcase and sell their work.
The Eagle Theater offered improvisational acting workshops and many of Hammonton’s arts organizations hosted open houses. In addition, there were plenty of hands-on, arts-oriented activities and a play zone for kids.
“It’s a great event for the community and helps to highlight the importance of the arts,” says Laura Bethmann, a local artist and member of Art Club Hammonton. “By hosting events like this we’re promoting local artists, supporting local businesses and restaurants, and helping to make Hammonton a destination for the arts.”
Bethmann, who moved to Hammonton a little over five years ago with her husband, said the Art Club provides “a really great way to connect with other artists in the area.
“We’re a community-based group of artists and hold a variety of events, classes and exhibitions, when we can find alternative spaces where we can host our shows,” she said. “We’ve also received a lot of support from other local arts organizations in town.”
Swenson called the Hammonton Arts and Music Festival “a huge source of joy” from “seeing how many people were interested in art” and it “emphasized our goal to help people realize that art is not just something you hang on the wall.
“By forming the Art Club we’ve built friendships as well as a supportive community, and we’re thrilled to support the growing art scene in Hammonton.”
Sponsors and supporters of the 2023 Hammonton Arts and Music Festival include: MainStreet Hammonton, Hammonton Makers, Chimney Rustic Ales, Sherwin-Williams, ARH Associates, READ Preschool, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and Visit NJ.
