Wow - so much has happened. We had 2 teams join us in time for Artscape. About 8 people came from the Jones County Association in Mississippi, and 6 from Temple Terrace, FL, to help us.
Arriving first, Jones County helped us to finish up our space as best as possible for our impending Health Inspection, Monday July 14th. They painted, cleaned, and overall got the place ready for the Health Inspector.
The Health Inspector arrived, and unfortunately, we got a "Yellow Light". That means that while we didn’t “fail”, we also did NOT pass, and have to make some rather large changes/additions, such as adding another bathroom and a 3-compartment sink in the kitchen. This was a little disheartening, as we had hoped to move forward with other permits, such as occupancy limits and an artisan permit (to operate as a gallery), in time for Artscape. The big crimp that this put in our plans was that we could no longer hold our first Art Show to coincide with Artscape, in which two of our in-house artists, Jocelyn Bocchino and Jason Pastrana, were going to show their work.
But that didn't thwart us in the end! We stuck with the basic plan, but also made some significant changes, (of course!).
Temple Terrace arrived in the midst of this, and started covering the area in prayer.
As you heard in my last post, we were approved for a booth at Artscape, in the Family Art Park. We continued with our original plan – to invite the kids to make a “stained glass window” for us. The teams helped us cut out tessellations, which would serve as the basic template for each child’s “window”. They would cut holes out of the black construction paper, and fill the holes with translucent tissue paper.
They could make one to take and one to leave
with us (or more!), and of those they left, seeing as they all interlocked, we planned to put them in the huge plate glass window that fronts The Light. In this way, we could invite them to participate in our space, and also invite them to come by later to see their work! We had great interaction with the kids and their parents. While some of our volunteers were hands on, helping the kids (“Have you ever make a paper snowflake?” and ”Do you go to church?”), our other volunteers were engaging Mom and Dad, talking to them about God, church, and The Light. And, as each kid left, we also sent them on with a “package” advertising The Light that included a cup, filled with a magnet, button, pen and carabiner.
We also volunteered with Artscape, again, but this time we were assigned to a different role than last year: mostly working the information booths throughout the festival. This was at times difficult for some folks, as most of the teams we provided to Artscape were from out-of-town and weren’t even sure of what info to give! But Southern charm won out in the end, and everyone did a great job representing the Lord and The Light.
We also still hung Jocelyn and Jason’s work at The Light, as well as set up a table in front of The Light, on the sidewalk. Being about 3½ blocks from the action of Artscape, we are in a prime spot for outreach. We handed out free, ice-cold water bottles (FREE!), along with our various promotional items: magnets, flyers (cleverly folded to look like a fat pencil), buttons, pens, and cups. While it was funny to see the number of people who couldn’t believe that the water was actually free, it was great to see and meet the folks who not only were grateful for the FREE water on a HOT summer day, but also wanted to see what we were doing in our new space. We found out that
the local neighborhood/community has been curious about what we’ve been doing in there, as it had been empty for 2-3 years before us. They were excited to hear that it was to be a gallery, and surprised that a church could be associated with it. We also told folks that though we weren’t open yet, we would be soon, and invited them in to take a look around, as a “sneak peak.” This allowed us still to advertise, get the word out, invite folks into our space, and connect with the neighborhood and fellow artists. This, in turn, let us specifically make connections with the art community and develop a list of contacts for our future art shows.
We also were privileged in that the husband in one of our new couples, Jesse, had a piece chosen to be installed in the median of a major thoroughfare in Artscape, and it will remain there until NEXT year’s Artscape, in part because one of the requirements of the pieces was that it provide outside seating! Congrats, Jesse!
Though, that “Free water! Get your free water! Would you like some free water?” will ring in my ears for a while.
It was three exciting days of outreach and engagement and advertising. The Sunday of Artscape was exciting, as we had over 50 people at service. But it didn’t come without a cost.
As I mentioned in my
May post, our tenant/neighbor has not been pleased that we are even there. After Artscape, he complained to our mutual landlord again, and has made moves to contact other neighborhood bodies about our permits or lack thereof. While, thankfully, our landlord still likes us, unfortunately our tenant/neighbor has asked that we not even talk with him. Please continue to pray for him and us in this.
As we have been renovating and completing permit requirements (with conflicting messages from Baltimore City!), we have decided to rejoin our downtown church for Sunday services for the month of August (or until permit-ted! – whichever comes first!). This was a difficult decision, but it allows us to finish the renovations more quickly and be “above reproach” in our compliance with city ordinances. An unexpected bonus is that our core group is taking advantage of this time to visit other churches and services that are doing creative things along the East Coast.
We have already seen several people come by church as a result of handing out water bottles on that hot summer day. Thanks Jones County and Temple Terrace!
ALSO, I have a praise report from our role in LAST year’s Artscape. The volunteer coordinator with whom we worked last year, Heather (mentioned in my
Artscape post of last year), is still working with Artscape, though in a different capacity – with the Family Art Park. What has been really great is that she has been contacting us as she and her husband have started looking for a church! We are hoping to see them when we are finally officially open. In the meantime, we are keeping contact with her, so thanks again to our Mississippi teams who helped us in forging this relationship last year as well as this year.
We used this opportunity this year to hand out 3,000 cold bottles of water, 1,900 business/church cards, 100 church art zines, 950 art show postcards and 500 promotional pieces concerning our church(buttons, magnets, etc). All this was done over a matter of a weekend with ¼ of the manpower that we had last year with the help of the mission teams.
Art Opening
