Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts with Diane Rogers

 (00:01.054) Meg:

Welcome back to the Bridgeton Beacon. I'm here today with Ra’shaun Chandler and we are profiling and shining a spotlight on the Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts. Here we go.

Funding has been made possible in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Department of State, New Jersey Historical Commission, Department of State, and the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners through the Cumberland County Cultural and Heritage Commission.

 (00:39.742) Diane:

Hi, I'm Diane Rogers. the executive director here at the Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts in Millville, New Jersey. This center has been in the downtown here since 2001. It was an idea of artists and city leaders at the time that took three properties that were run down properties to invest in this and create a space for creative people and for the community to use.

Our main mission is to be here for the arts, be here for the community, collaborating with other partners within the area. And we are considered a regional art center as we draw artists to show their work here from mostly South Jersey counties. And then also people come out from those areas to support the artists. We do also have art education programs. Currently we're running a summer art camp in July for kids.

all the way up to 18 years, three age groups. We also in that program collaborate with South Jersey's Rowan College, the Clay College. So they learn ceramics for a whole week at this place. The three other weeks are here with artist teachers. And the main thing we do is our exhibits. And those are in several galleries as we'll walk through here, but we have open calls for art. So any artist, emerging artists, students to

professional artists will enter these shows that we provide. And we have group shows and very unusual things at times and year round gift shop, which helps artists and crafters because they can sell their pieces here and make a living at it. Cause it's a tricky business to be in. But people do it because they're passionate too. It's not about necessarily selling the art, but our community really appreciates being able to see the art cause not everyone can get to Philadelphia to the big museums.

But here they get a cross section of art, different varieties, and we change things every two months or every month. So I guess we'll walk through. Surprising as it is, I actually have my own exhibit here, which was through a grant program with the Cultural and Heritage Commission in Pummerlain County. They asked me, the Air Museum asked me to do pieces of work, posters, similar to what they did in World War II, to get people interested.

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in the history that is at the museum. But the main purpose for the posters, they will be scanned and printed and given to the high schools to go with their current World War II history classes. So these would be used and seen by many students. are you originally from Cumberland County? Actually, no, I'm originally from Canada, Ontario, and I moved here quite a while ago now. And I've been working here at the Center for

10 plus years. But the arts are alive in Cumberland County. They really are. And this is a really nice connection with the museum because if you go out there, there's fabulous history of not just World War II, some other things and local things, but there's quite a few murals out there by Sam Donovan of amazing artists. And there's art pieces within that museum too. So we will all kind of work together to make it make all the connections we make.

Ra'shaun:
And Ms. Diane, can you tell me how the art is different from New Jersey, from Canada? you know, that's a good question. But I think in a lot of cases, at least where I was from in Ontario, the art there reflects the area they live in. And you'll see when we go in this main gallery over here, landscape artists capture basically the same things depending on the area they live. So.

There's a lot of consistency, I'd say. That's a good question. Thank you. And this is called the Pat Witt Gallery. If you're familiar with The Barn Studio of Art, which is in Millville here, they have children's classes, adult classes, and we work with them quite a bit. Pat Witt was very instrumental in supporting this becoming an arts center.

And that was an honor that was given to her when we opened in 2001. So this is the Witt Gallery and we currently have a group show in here. This is a really nice exhibit. It's the Society of New Jersey Artists, which is a group of artists that changes all the time, but they actually had this group in existence for 75 years. We had a celebration exhibit of that. They started in Greenwich of all places, which is very South Jersey. So it's...

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They really built the group up in the last few years and they have exhibits in plenty of places, but we're really happy to have it here. And this was their theme was Jersey Fresh Off the Easel, which some people took as actual vegetables, fruits like we get in South Jersey and just fresh paintings.

And they had an award ceremony for the pieces as you'll see the ribbons around, but they're beautiful works they were allowed to put in three, up to three pieces per artist. So they are grouped by artists in the little section you see. But as again, you see a lot of landscapes captured the environment around here, our rural spaces. And then, like I said, all kinds of things because they had the option to show anything they wanted for this. like you said, in Canada, a lot of the art was the...

area where you lived and same here in South Jersey. I my question would be prior to the opening in the early 2000s of the Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts, where would this organization, the Jersey, the Society of New Jersey Artists display their artwork? Were it not for this location? Yeah, I think a lot of times there's, there have been places like a library or other

open places that would have exhibits. I know the libraries also have the senior art shows usually, so I think that was one of their places. I'm not really sure. Probably the small building that they started the organization in probably did exhibits. Around the county, like even into Salem County, I'm not really sure, but even now there's places that will have small art exhibits in them just so they are there for the public.

church settings or, you when they have an extra building or clubs. But yeah, it's nice that we're here to have them here. But they currently show in places from Ocean City to Deptford, kind of all over the place. But it's nice for those areas to see what's happening in way South Jersey, as I call it. Sometimes we're sort of off everyone's radar because they think of South Jersey as even Trenton, which to me is central Jersey, but that's not popular opinion.

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But we're definitely South Jersey and this exhibit definitely reflects what kind of things are here. So when was this show in Judged and who were the judges? This was, we do all our opening receptions are on the third Friday of the month. So this was the third Friday in September. The judge was an artist that teaches and is sometimes showing work here, Renee, I can't think, Lea Pardee.

She's a pastel artist, very knowledgeable of all the different mediums that are here. So she came in with the group. They invited her to judge the show. And then the awards were announced at seven o'clock on our third Friday opening night. So we have live music, the artists, refreshments every third Friday. it's really close. Are there awards presented every month? Not always. So this current, this was done this month.

Coming next month, October 18th, we open an all new exhibits and that will be in the bigger gallery, the main gallery. You'll see it artists members of ours. It's a group of really talented artists that are allowed to show two pieces of work. And in that show, we will have awards. So that'll be on October 18th at 7 p.m. And that's open to the public. Yep. Everything we do is free except for maybe some workshops and things like that. coming here Tuesday through Saturday, 11 to four.

That's our hours and we're here for anyone who wants to sit and read some books. We have a library upstairs, we have a classroom upstairs and art studios. So those are used by people and just coming in and seeing the art and staying here for a little while just to relax in a real calm setting. Now you said all of you have associate artists. Yes, we have memberships for the Art Center here. So we have associate artist members. They get two shows a year just for them.

And then we have affiliate artist members who get one show a year. So there's sort of different levels depending on the criteria of what the artist wants to apply for as a member. And they have to apply to be a member? do. We have an exhibition committee that looks through, they have to send in 10 images and fill out some information for us. it's, sometimes artists feel like, I didn't go to art school, but that's not critical in the whole situation because

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Many artists did not. They're just very creative people. And over time, they've maybe taken classes, or even if they haven't, they've discovered how to use whatever medium they're working in. Do you have rolling applications for that process, or is it almost certain times of the year? We kind of go by six months in sections. we used to do it just December, or yeah, December and July. So it was like a six month. Now we allow applications come in any time. So if they're past July and they pay their membership, it's for the next year.

And if it's prior to that, it's for the year we're in. So that way we don't limit anyone from trying to apply to be a member here. And they get a better, we do consignment sales with everything here. the nonprofit that we are gets a small section of that, but the artists get the majority of the sale. But as a paid artist member in our groups, they get a better percentage on their sales, which is very helpful. And the percentage we take goes to pay for credit card fees.

you know, packaging and just certain things, but it's a donation basically. all of their artwork or is all of their artwork displayed in the room next door? The associate artist I'm talking about? Not at this time in this coming months. It's the week before the 18th, that weekend, we have drop off and pick up. So it's a little chaotic in here. So the people come take the art and other people drop it off. They have to fill out a form so we know what the new art is.

And then I personally am the one to hang the exhibits, which I really enjoy. I don't know why it's just sort of like an art in itself, but seeing the work and seeing how to present it well, that's very important too for the artists because it does matter how the work is displayed so that people see it for what it is. Yeah.

So once an individual artist becomes a member, are they a lifetime member or is it a certain limited time? Do you try to get fresh faces in? How does that work? Well, they most of the time artists continue to stay members with us and there is an annual payment for that. But most do continue for many years. And we are rolling in new members all the time. Like young people come in and they see what goes on here. They feel welcome. We hope we try that very much. And because we're the

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college with art classes not too far from here there's people that come in through that. Yeah so it's just kind of like a rotating thing where we do get those new emerging artists in. And are most of those artists local or are they from all over the state? They're mainly I'd say local and regional to South Jersey so Salem, Gloucester, Atlantic, Cape May counties pretty much and of course Cumberland County so yeah they're

Mostly local, regionally local, we'll say. And if we have any artists who are listening and want to get more information, they would go on your website. Yeah, definitely. And at the end, we'll get all the contact Yeah, you'll have all the contact. Yeah, definitely. The application is listed on the website. When you go there, you click through and find it. And then also, have on there, you can just email myself to ask questions or get more information on the application. But you do not have to be a member to show work here.

So when we have open calls themed exhibits, October we do have one, it's called Daydreams and Nightmares, of pulling into the October fun Halloween. But artists will enter that show and there's no fees to enter and new artists, different artists, anyone can enter. A lot of our artist members also participate because it's kind fun doing different themes. Well, I mainly work here to be here for the artists.

And when I first started here, I really didn't talk about what I did personally. I've done commissioned artwork for many years. And like that project art you saw out in the hallway, that's like colored pencil art that I do, but I mostly do pencil art. But I really kind of, here I'm working here, so I'm here for the other artists. But I think it does help that I understand art, understand what it takes to create art, so it makes it easier to communicate with.

these other creative people. So it would be crucial to have someone that has a passion for as an executive director, right? Yeah. And sometimes at times I never really studied intently art history outside of like high school or whatever. And I did commercial art. But even in that mix, if somebody mentions an artist like, this looks like so and so's work and I don't know who it is, I learn because I'll look that up. And again, we have a beautiful art library upstairs. So we

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often have books available on any artist you can think of. And we're going to go upstairs and see that. Before we leave this room, I just had a question. You said that on display right now is art from the Society of New Jersey Artists. Is this room always filled with artwork from the Society of New Jersey Artists or is that just now? Our exhibition schedule is January, February, that's time for shows every two months.

until September and October, those are one month shows. So we change everything in all the galleries when there's new, know, when those months come by. So, yeah, this is once a year for them. Got it. What's in the other room right now? Well, that one's a little different. In September, there was a there was a film festival, the Cut International Film Festival at the Leibroyd Theatre. It was over the course of the weekend and it coincided with Third Friday. So the exhibit over there are photographs

Some of Wheaton Arts, or not Wheaton Arts, Wheaton when it was empty and something to see there. And then the others are photos of a woman's body painting. So it's art within an art photo. So everything in there is a fundraiser for that organization that did the film festival. So it's still an exhibit, but it's a little different. We've never done that before. So you collaborated with the organization. We try to help other organizations when we can. Can you show us that? Yeah, we're heading there right now.

You lead the way. Certainly. So this is our main gallery. We used to call it our North gallery, but then we thought, no, it's our main gallery. So this is so it's a larger space than the room we were in. And as I said, there's photos of art, body art painting, and those are sort of like in a not a raffle, but an auction type setting. And then some from when they had the ability to go inside Wheaton's when the plant was still there.

but in the emptiness of what once was in the glass industry. Or those numbers instead, normally we put labels, but these numbers were put on because people can put tickets in to win one of these pieces. So it's a a way to identify the pieces. Yeah, so it was a little different. Because normally we would do labels for the art, which include the title, the medium, and the price. That way-

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somebody looking at it can understand what they're seeing, but they can also, if they're interested in purchasing, they have that place in front of them. When I came in, there was a woman sitting here reading, which I thought was just so fabulous that this is a space for people to come and enjoy the art and spend time in this beautiful room. Is that typical? Yes, it is. We do have, and during the week we have people that will just stop in. We usually provide some books from our library upstairs down here.

And we also had today on Saturdays, there was only one woman here, a knitter crochet group that they come in and work on their own projects here. And if somebody wants to join and learn a little bit about that, it's not traditional lessons, but you know, they're very welcoming. And yeah, every day of the week, it seems there's something in here. We have theater groups that come in after hours to practice in our space here. We have a Girl Scout troop that's located here. They do their meetings. We have a photography club that comes in once a month.

and probably others that I'm forgetting. But on Thursday afternoons, we have a group of painters that use our backroom space. They used to paint together at Margaret Richie's, I forget the name of her studio, a woman that had done this for years, a painter's group. She did pass away, but she was almost 100. She lived a very long, wonderful life. But when that ended, the family had the place where her studio was.

We were able to work together to have them come here and they were very happy about it, including even that when Margaret passed away, we were one of her in her list on our obituary to contribute funds to. So we were able to get money and do a scholarship for an art student at the high school two years in a row because of this group. So we're just happy they're here because they get to paint here as a group. That's wonderful. think about back when

Ms. Margaret was a young budding artist. They didn't have a place like this. Right, right. And so this really does provide a venue for artists to come together in a community. Yes. Support each other. So it's just fabulous. Yeah, we really appreciate that people want to be here. And that's what our goal is, know, and feel everyone to feel welcome, everybody. So that's why we do what we do. Because I do so often that yes, it's an art center, but it's

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an art community center, definitely. Now you had mentioned this Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts began in I think the late 90s, early 2000s. 2001, that's when it actually opened. So over 20 years. Yeah. How long have you been here? I've been 10 years. I started part time, just like a job to assist the director at the time and do things that needed doing and there was a lot of

There had been a few different directors over the years just because it's been so long. And one of my projects was organizing leftover gift shop things and sort of a mess in our back room because that's what happens when you have art going on, things multiply. I don't think anyone ever said an artist was neat. Yeah, can be messes. if you go upstairs, which we will, you'll see that our main classroom and our fancy tables are very well decorated by years and years of art.

We do have people that either rent the space or use our tables and chairs, and we always tell them, bring table covers. Because the tables work just fine, they're attracted to me because they're artful, but they aren't plain tables anymore. Let's go check it out. Yeah, we have all kinds of things. We'll walk through here too. We'll have this space here available. As I mentioned, our membership, one of the membership benefits is

Probably about every two years, there's two artists that get to have shows, a show in this space. Currently we have two that kind of balance each other. Tanya Pamales is local and she does work all over the country, does shows all over the country with her work, because it's a specific type of art as you can see. I can't really label it, but I would call it dark art or I can't remember the actual term, but she's a...

Beautiful art is like the the painting is just amazing. Her drawings are so detailed She's actually going to we have an event coming up on October 26 called High Street Arts Fest and she's gonna be doing demos of her drawing here She's in our group that's planning the event talk to you in more detail about that I don't know if you want to talk about that now or towards the end But I saw that yeah on your website It looked like you're really promoting that event and it looks like that's the first time you've done an event like that. It is

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Tell me about that and then you can tell me about the other artists work. mention Lisa's work first. Lisa Jean, she's a tattoo artist as well as this is pencil, colored pencil and pastel artist. Same kind of genre of art as Tanya, so it kind of worked out for the grouping to come together like this, which I try to do. And we're changing this again next month. But yeah, it's kind of a fun.

Things balance each other because we've got the traditional art on the other side and then we have a little different stuff here. It's kind of something for everyone. And then of course we have our year-round gift shop as you can see. Many things in here. We do change it up from time to time but there's pretty strong sales here. I didn't realize this was a gift shop. When I first walked in I wasn't sure if I could walk back here. It's the only space that really worked for it so we kind of tuck it in here. This is also where I work on grant writing and

you know, any kind of information things I have to do for as the director, like social media postings and all the things that are necessary. I have a wonderful board of directors that work with me and some volunteers as well. If we need help for anything, we always find people who want to help here. This is kind of a fun place to be. It seems like it is. I mean, this seems like a great place to come, especially with the holidays right around the corner. In November, December, that large gallery is similar to our gift shop where we set it up.

shop style and we encourage, we call it artful giving, we encourage people, artists to bring different unique pieces that would be giftable for people or for themselves. So we've done that every year and we have a lot of people that shop here. They know we have this coming and we're open for shop small Saturday and different things during that time period. So it's definitely a holiday shop. One question that I had as I was reviewing your website was you mentioned

started in 2001, group of local artists, local leaders, any of the individuals, and I know you weren't there then or were here then. Well, I actually did go to the opening, but I involved. I was just curious if any individuals that came in and were one of the founders are still involved. Yes, we do have Don Krohanski is one of our associate artists. She's still involved. We had Leslie Ficalia who was involved, but she now moved to France, but I'm sure she keeps an eye on what's going on.

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And several others do still either just come here or maybe have some art here. And just the ones who were supported from the beginning. I know over the years we've had visits and information from them. So it's a special place for sure. Yeah. Want to go back to our event? I'm sorry. Go ahead. Diane. buy stuff from the gift shop. they go to a nonprofit organization? Yes. So when they purchase something here, mainly

60 or 70 percent goes to the artist so that 40 30 or 40 percent stays here which does help us out but we also help the artist by collecting the tax and Doing things that it need to be done. So that's not a burden on them and then we give them consignment checks So every month or so I'll run a report and do checks for the artists for anything that's sold So it's kind of nice a win-win for everyone. Yes and in the gift shop question some of these things are here for

you know, stretch of time and eventually somebody buys something. So the artist has no idea they're getting a check. They just open the mail. Hey, I sold something. So it's kind of fun for me. And I know it's kind of fun. Very exciting. More than just the although I'm sure they like getting the check in the mail. It's more than just be recognized. I share stories often with artists if they sell something in the gallery or in here. If I get some information from the person buying it, I always pass that on to the artist because I know myself that matters because

you know, they saw something in the art or whatever it meant to them. It's kind of nice little stories. Their art spoke to someone else. a particular reason. Where the money's not as important as knowing something like that really hits home. Excellent. Well, I took a peek upstairs. There was an artist or two up there working. Are you able to take us up there? Yes. But real quick, how about I talk about our High Street Arts Fest? So that's a partner thing. We have orange flyers here. This is on our website.

We've just started doing artist spotlights. So basically this program or this event, I should say, it's from 11 to two on October 26. So we'll have artists doing demos here. We have the Historical Society here with some history things and art making from that period with some music and all these different locations up and down the street, including the college, DC gallery and studio, the village on high art shops, is like Labotega.

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and octopus garden, and then we have in between cloning flowers that's participating. There's a new vintage shop called My God, It's Vintage. She's participating. those locations will have artists doing demos. The college will have a student club doing work with people. So it's just a way for people to see. It's not a vendor event. It's an event to see what happens in the arts. Just come through and a studio tour here. About six of our studio artists will be here.

so they can see how artists work in their studio. So it's like an easy, nice little stroll through town to see what's going on. So it's our first attempt. We'll see what happens. That's wonderful. And tell me the name of the event again, one more time. It's called the High Street Arts Fest. And the street is not shut down. It's all off the street, within businesses. The plaza, we may have chalk art or a musician out there and things like that. So it's just nice thing to do, walk through it and see arts in action. I've heard people say, you know, you have to go to a place like New Hope or someplace like that to get that. And it's right here in our backyard. We really keep it going. And you know, it's had its ups and downs. And but as long as you stay at it, people see that we're here. Other people will join us. It's just really nice. October 26. We want to come back and get some footage that day. that's great. we can go upstairs. I'll show you real quick. All right. We'll go this way. We'll go. Everything with a loop.

Well, mean, is right around this way. And I can just point to things down here. Great. This is our main hallway. Obviously, bathrooms are this way. We have a classroom space back there, which is also a kitchen space when we've had events here where they need the fridge, stove kind of thing. And then further back is some more storage and a basement. And you've even got artwork back here. Yes. This is a collection from Tim Shannon, who did pass away. was a former mayor of Melville. His his wife decided to

donate this, he was very supportive of artists. Some of these are pieces we had, like there's a Pat Witt in the middle, but we thought, why not put a little exhibit here in the hallway? We've got the space. So yeah, so it's nice. And some of these artists also have passed on. So it's sort of a memorial spot too for some tribute to some artists. Their art lives on. Yes, definitely. So yeah, that's what the woman didn't want them just sitting somewhere or

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She's probably moving or whatever. She wanted them to go somewhere where they'd be appreciated. Anything, go ahead. Which is definitely the case. Got chatty kids upstairs. Okay, so we'll find today, you can hear it already. We have a Saturday Teen Art Club. We started with the intentions and goals of getting young artists here, giving them a space where they can create, learn things, or just work on their own things themselves. We started it a year ago.

wait, two years ago in November. So there'll be the second year we've been running this. And we've got a group of either three to 10 kids that will come here when they're feeling like coming. New ones have come along. But we'll go upstairs. They're very chatty and busy. That's great. And do they come at a certain time or is it just when they, right? The other day is one to four. We're open till four. So they can be here all that time. Do they need to sign up in advance? I need to know because I have to have

permission from the parents and a contact. But other than that, they're welcome to come and stay and they can leave if they need to. It's really nice. And we have out front, I know you took a video, a little art gallery out there. Right now there's nothing in it. But a lot of the students will do small paintings and put them out there for people to come take. And we've had a good turnaround. It's only been a few months that we've had our little art gallery out front. Some people are dropping things off too from the public.

It's really nice. It seems to be working. So the only tricky part is we have a large staircase here. We do not have accessibility, but if a program needs to be on the main floor, we accommodate. So for our kids, they have no problem with the steps. So let's head on up and just take a peek at some of the artwork. I'm not going to film any of the kids. We have the art library, so they got that. Let's go right into the art library first. Yeah, I'll get the light.

Yeah, lots of stairs. Yeah, this is a really nice view up here. We like having the windows and when they did renovate this space, I think it was plans to have a closed second floor and then this developed into an opening. I like this much better than the first one because behind us here is beautiful, Do you know anything about the history of this building? It was Frank's men and boys shop. And I don't know how many years it had been in business, but a lot of people are familiar with that.

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The basement still has some shelves that I guess they had their shoes and belts and things like that down there. So you kind of get a vibe from that. But it's cool. Yeah. So it's nice that it was turned into this because this is great. So this is the library. So the other thing, this is the art library. As you'd see, we've got books. We've been organizing it and trying to make it better. So we've kind of got it better than it was. It's a little space to hang out. You can get to all the books now.

We always get more things in. People do donate books. And I've worked with these books with some of the students because, yes, we have our phones and our computer where we can say, look up an artist like Van Gogh or whoever. But we have books that are so well printed and large. The quality of what you see in these books is much better than what you even see when you look it up on a computer. So it's almost like a step closer to being in a gallery to see the art.

Again, there's how-to books, there's different mediums, there's everything you can think of in here. And it was a cataloged library at one point, as you could see some are marked. But at this point, we just kind of put them with what books go with what books. I like that it's a nice place, Wyatt, for people to come and sit and peruse and express themselves exactly. And then as you see in here, those doors on either side, we have

for artists studios here. I didn't bring the keys up to open them, but they're private studios that artists rent long term and they come here to do their work. They have keys and the alarm code so they can come here at any time of day and they can work on whatever they need and they can also move over to the main classroom up here if they have a larger project. But it's really a benefit for artists to have these.

It's wonderful. Yeah. And there's 10 artists studios in total because across the hall there's two, there's the rest, six more. divvy them up, so to speak? Well, they were, a lot of these were already in place when I started working here. We added two into the classroom because it was a large classroom. Just over time, several of the artists have been here since the beginning. So they've had these studios quite some time. We don't have turnover very often. So once in a while we'll have somebody that decides to leave them.

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We do have people that inquire about them. And if we don't have a studio available, we do tell them if they would like to come in 11 to four and use the classroom, they're quite welcome to as long as we know somebody's up here working. So we've had that happen too where we don't necessarily have a studio, but they have space to work in. Wonderful. Yeah. And we have a lot of art supplies in our main classroom, which some were purchased for the summer program this year.

Many of the supplies have already been here or from other programs. And when we were able to buy supplies, they don't just disappear. We can at least take some shots of there's an abundance of paintbrushes. You'll see it's very artistic over there. Let's go check it out. It's our kids' room. It's team room. Hi, guys. We're doing like an interview thing. But they're not going to film you guys. Hi. Not you guys. They're going to film stuff in here.

So our teams are in here. We also are part of the Teen Arts Festival for Cumberland and Cape May County every year. So lot of the space here is used by when we have pop-up events or demos or instructions, they have workshops during that festival. Some of this stuff was leftover art from projects and programs. But this is our very organized space. Our paint and paintbrush area, we have

a laundry tub here. So it's very useful for any artists to work on pretty much any medium. And there's two art studios here and some more. And moms are probably happy that they can come here and do their artwork. Yeah, that's it. We can make a mess and it's OK. As I said, these tables are when you see our table spaces, they're quite used. So that's a studio here and studio here. One of our junior artists made that during the summer. She hasn't taken it home yet.

That's the other thing too, if artists are coming here, the teen artists, they don't always finish everything, but they know they have a space over here to keep their things till next week or they might not even ever finish them because artists do that too. I love the tables. they're attractive. yes, you can. Yeah, you can bring your things with you and we let people use our supplies too, as long as they're respectful and wash the brushes and things like that. They're welcome to use things that we have because most of things were donated or

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through the grant funding that we do get. Our main grant comes from the New Jersey State Council for the Arts. So that helps pay for programs and keeps us open. We're very thankful to be in that zone where we can get money from the state. Well, and while you say that, I would just give a shout out. This episode that we're filming right now is funded in part

through funding from the Cumberland County Cultural and Heritage Commission, as well as New Jersey Council for the Arts. Wonderful. It's a wonderful organization that supports the arts throughout Cumberland County and beyond. Yes, the State Council funds the Cultural and Heritage Commission. We're really happy. They're so involved with a lot of things in the community. We do have, they use our space to do their grant writing workshop. So we're happy to get organizations in here, making sure they know how to write the grants.

to get that funding for the arts. And the whole goal is to get the word out. Yes. That the arts are alive in Carmelin County. Definitely. And that's why we wanted to come meet you. Yes, it's wonderful. People have to come discover it because sometimes you don't know until you walk in the door and then you will promote all the other organizations that do arts-based work as well. So we work together. Excellent. Now, just before we wrap up,

Tell us your hours one more time. Sure. We are open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 to four. If we have special events, that'd be on our website. And one day a month, third Friday of the month, we're open six till eight specifically for the program. Although we're open from 11 in the morning till eight basically. And you said on those evenings, the third Fridays of each month, is there music as well? Yes, we have live music, local musicians, maybe a solo artist or...

a group of three or more. And they are paid to be here. get in, but just as anything, they are artists as well. Can you tell us about the people that come here for the knitting? so the knitting and crocheting program? Yeah, that's sort of like a casual walk and they've been coming here for a long time. So on Saturdays, they like to be here down in our space downstairs to do that. Yeah. Wonderful. Great. OK. And your website?

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Yes, that's rrcarts.com. And we're on Facebook as well, River Front Renaissance Center for the Arts. Long name, but when you start typing it, it'll come up. And we're going to have all of those links at the bottom of this show so that our listeners can link right to you and check out all that you have to offer. That's wonderful. And everyone's welcome on Third Friday or any of the hours we're open. October 28th, Joy. October 26th, we have our event downtown with our partners. That'll be a...

Good day to visit. Excellent. October 26th and we'll have that information as well. Thank you. Diane, thank you so much for taking the time today to give us the tour and we'll try to come back and get some more footage. Great. So you have different exhibits out. That's wonderful. Yes. Next month will be real nice. Thanks again. Next time. Let's go. I know. Bye.