Scenes from the Community Arts Festival

The Cultural Connection and Creative Arts held the first Community Arts Festival on Oct 2nd to unite Reading's cultural and artistic organizations.

The event was open to the public. Activities included demonstrations, music instrument petting zoo, performances, activities and information booths.

 Percussion instructor, Joshua Jade, mans the instrument petting zoo. Here, he encourages his daughter to explore a violin.

While public numbers were low (despite a ton of advertising), participating arts organizations had a blast networking!

 We had wonderful music and theatrical performances!

 Family trio from Reading Civic Concert Band

Student from Alpha Omega on the acoustic guitar. He was great!

Guitar & vocal instructor, Mark D. Troiano, provided music for those milling in the info booth hall.

Fiddle instructor, Esther Friedman, fiddled away on the main stage!

Quannapowitt Players performance: Velma and company performer All That Jazz

Billy Flynn: All I Care About is Love!

And let's not forget about the art show:

And this is just a selection. Great show...thanks to Creative Arts instructors, students and volunteers. Many thanks to our performers, sponsors and booth contributors!

Be A Part of the Arts!

I really enjoyed reading this article about the Arts as an important component of human psychology or, more importantly, the fundamental - almost basal - need to CREATE and imagine.

Think about it.

We require our creative thinking abilities everyday...in school...getting dressed...planning the week...making breakfast/lunch/dinner...at work...playing video games....We are creative everyday.

Like the article enumerates, during tough times, we crave self expression and entertainment.

We listen to music to free ourselves, to relax, to workout, to focus. We doodle - even if it's the 3D cube. We write, we journal, take pictures and play Scrabble and Chess. We like putting complementary colors and patterns together, well, almost. A specific memory comes to mind of my first self-dressing experience at age 3 (think stripes, polka-dots and a pink tutu).

Though artists and teachers of the Arts may not save the world (as this article indicates), they can save us by encouraging self expression and channeling our emotions, which can be quite healing. In the end, everyone needs a creative outlet.