Gearing up for Conshy Arts Festival and Car Show as a virtual reality – Montgomery Newspapers

CONSHOHOCKEN Thanks to COVID-19, growing numbers of regional and global art venues are jumping onto the digital bandwagon with remote class sessions and virtual get-togethers that range from single subject tutorials to out-of-the-box shows like Berlins balcony galleries, Australias silo murals and Long Islands Drive-By-Art.

When the coronavirus began threatening June 6s Conshohocken Arts Festival and Car Show, organizers opted to go virtual rather than cancel. After all, they reasoned, during these days of remote classrooms, church services, TV shows, and family gatherings, a street festival doesnt actually have to be on thewell, street.

That said, this years Conshohocken Arts Festival and Car Show will go live virtually on June 6 at 11 a.m. and continue to showcase its 2020 lineup at ConshohockenArtsFestival.com through the end of the month. At press time, that lineup includes a June 6 kick-off party with daylong livestream performances by some 20 local bands, ongoing vendor displays by dozens of artists and craftsmen, shots of vehicles entered in its car show and several raffles.

The festival is a fundraiser for Conshohocken Art League and Destination Conshohocken, the latter established by Festival Director and Conshohocken Mayor Yaniv Aronson as a non-profit focused on the arts, community service and providing mental health resources and programming.

I am so thankful that my team and I were able to organize this event for Conshohocken and our surrounding communities, Aronson says. Our team understands the seriousness of this quarantine but also wants to support local arts and provide a safe community event for residents. Were thrilled to put on this virtual event with the help of our incredible sponsors.

Lead sponsors are Lennys Italian Deli and Beacon Bridge Wealth Partners. The mayors point people include wife Sarah, local podcast host Bob Cahill (www.thebobcast.podbean.com) and Conshohocken Art League President Eileen McDonnell.

We really look forward to this event every year, so I am excited that we are still able to host something for the community and support our local artists, McDonnell says. Were really grateful to be one of the beneficiaries of the festival.

Although the CAL president considers herself an analog person in a digital world (to quote High Fidelity co-creator Veronica Wests paraphrase of an Erykah Badu lyric), she appreciates the technology that enable events like the festival or, for that matter, the virtual live figure drawing sessions she currently attends from her home studio.

McDonnell calls the three-year-old Conshohocken Arts Festival crucial to CALs mission.

When the (festival) was initially proposed three years ago, the art league had been struggling financially for several years, she says. In order to continue to serve Conshohockens artistic community, we strove to keep our tuitions reasonableyet maintain fair reimbursement to our professional artist instructors. CAL board members, instructors and junior students parents volunteered hours doing fundraising events. Dependent upon donors, especially to finance our junior students with professional supplies, supplement instructors and models fees, we have been able to continually offer strictly fine art classes without sacrificing our standards.

According to McDonnell, those efforts were jeopardized when borough council discontinued a small grant they had given us annually.

As you can imagine, we welcomed the beneficiary assistance offered by Mayor Aronson with his proposal to hold a festival dedicated to the arts of the region, coupled with the wildly popular annual car show (held in Conshohocken each June), she says. The festival brought CAL into the consciousness of countless new audiences, and our classes and events saw marked growth. With the festivals generous donations, CAL was finally able to breathe a little more easily. Then came coronavirus.

And with it, major disappointment at the prospect of a canceled festival.

I truly credit Yaniv, his wife, Sarah, and their amazing, supportive teams for the can-do spirit that melded bits and pieces of a virtual festival concept into reality, McDonnell says. At the moment, virtual events are ubiquitous. In early March, they were not. Happily, our list of artists is growing daily. The virtual Conshohocken Arts Festival is taking off, and artists offering a broad spectrum of truly unique crafts and fine art are participating.

Visuals and links to their websites and social media platforms will be posted on the ConshohockenArtsFestival.com website through June 30. Some participants will conduct demos during the June 6 kick-off party. Additional vendors are welcome to register online at ConshohockenArtsFestival.com for $25. The site also contains details about June 6s music performances and car show entrants. More information is available at ConshohockenArtsFestival@gmail.com or 484-532-8144.

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Gearing up for Conshy Arts Festival and Car Show as a virtual reality - Montgomery Newspapers