A Parting Message from the President
It won’t be long before we witness the trees letting go of their leaves. By the time that happens, I will have let go of my role as President of our beloved Guild. When this issue of the newsletter is published, we will be in the midst of completing the 2024-2025 OCAG Executive Board Election, with the announcement and swearing in of the new Board and Trustees to occur on Monday, September 9, 2024!
I am so excited to witness the new “dream team” take the reins and help the Guild continue to become the best version of itself, the premiere destination for arts and cultural experiences in Ocean County! I know that the prospective candidates have been nominated, recommended, and selected with great care and for the special gifts and talents they will bring to our organization. They all care very much about the future of the Guild, its members, and our mission to help grow art, artists and art lovers in Ocean County and beyond. Most importantly, they are all great people whom I respect and admire!
As my mom always said, people are more important than things! Over the last two years, this guiding principle, which reflects our mission, shaped the way I served as leader of the Guild, always looking at decisions through the lens of what is best for our artists, members, families, friends, students, patrons, and the community at large.
I am proud of what we have accomplished together over the last couple of years for all of our PEOPLE. We built on the legacy of our founders and on the great work of wonderful volunteers and leaders who came before us.
Here are some highlights from our accomplishments over the last two years.
We have:
• increased community outreach to bring art experiences to at-risk children and teens
• introduced special needs art classes
• provided free art education experiences to adults aged 55+ (2023 and 2024 Creative Aging Initiative Grant Awards)
• formed a new OCAG Photography Group with an annual juried photography show that draws photographers from all over the state of NJ
• formed the new OCAG Finance Committee and Fundraising/Sponsorships Committee
• secured a new Chairperson/volunteer for House and Grounds Committee
• created more exhibit opportunities in the community for our artists
• created the new gallery space known as the “Pop Up Gallery,” an exhibit space which has enable us to include and display the beautiful work created by fine arts craftsman
• secured the award of two Special Funding grants to create two murals for display on the property, We Grow Artists and the OCAG Founders Mural. The We Grow Artists mural was created to enable the visually impaired to be able to experience the design by incorporating raised contour lines that can be felt and Braille to help them read the text.
• partnered with Save Barnegat Bay and Ocean County Recycling to create a climate change themed mural on a recycling container placed in the community (Island Beach State Park)
• added musical theater class offerings for children
• Become a member of the Greater Toms River Chamber of Commerce (GTRCC) and regularly participate in GTRCC Nonprofit Committee meetings
• started to participate in GTRCC scholarship award program for graduating high school seniors and college students
• held our first volunteer appreciation event
• held our first outreach event for school district art teachers
• attended local college fairs, wellness fairs, business fairs, and local school art shows to interact with the community to spread awareness and information about the Guild
• held book signing events for our artist members who are authors
• secured Special Initiative Funding Grants to help us archive our history (scanning) and tell our story (history booklet in print and view online)
• presented the architect’s report and estimate for repair and restoration of the house.
• partnered with Toms River Garden Club for assistance with developing a design plan for landscaping and gardens
• received help from Convergint Technologies who graciously occurred and donated time for yard clean up efforts both in June 2023 and in June 2024
• continued our support of the Thomas Edison Film Festival
• partnered with Toms River Township to expand our offerings and provide art classes programs out in the community for our local residents
As we celebrate 50 years at 22 Chestnut Avenue, we think of our heritage of growing arts and culture over a span of 67 years and counting since the Guild organization was founded in 1957. Our women founders wanted to bring arts and cultural experiences to the Jersey Shore. Many of our founding members were accomplished artists in their own right. The Guild served as a way for artists to connect, share, learn and grow with and from one another. It is a legacy that lives on today.
At the time Edna Feerick graciously gifted the Victorian home (The Robert Given House) to the organization, there was some trepidation over how they would be able to sustain maintenance and repairs over time. Those concerns have remained even though they have passed on.
That being said, what will the next 50 years look like for the Guild, in a post-COVID era along with increased inflation, limited grant funding, declining membership rolls, declining volunteer support, reduced donations, and other factors? Add to that the closure of brick and mortar galleries often heard in the news and seeing local museums reporting temporary closures due to financial troubles.
Now let’s circle back to the theme of “letting go” and the sentiment of PEOPLE being more important than THINGS.
First, let me preface this with the statement that my feelings, expressed here, come from a place of great love that I have for the Guild and its members and my desire to see the organization not only survive but thrive for another 67 years and counting!
Members and friends, soon we will be faced with the decision to repair and restore the house or sell it and let it go. From my vantage point, even if the Guild were to secure the grants necessary to procure a preservation plan and then a follow-on capital grant to pay for the actual repairs, we would need to either borrow or raise at least $425,000 to cover the potential cost of the matched amounts for both of those grants combined. For an organization that barely breaks even year to year, this seems like an impossible task.
In my humble opinion, to choose to expend our very limited resources of time, money, and energy into restoring the house, we will put the organization in the position of prioritizing THINGS over PEOPLE. The house, while wonderful, is a THING.
The Guild always was, and will be, an organization of PEOPLE (artists, art lovers, and the community) who gather and work toward a common goal or purpose – to create, grow, and share art and to create arts and cultural experiences to enrich the lives of the residents in Ocean County and Beyond!
We currently do not have the resources to both meet our organization’s mission and to preserve the house. We need to ask ourselves if it is in the best interests of our members to spend our very limited time, money and energy to preserve the house instead of on our mission, our artists, our members, and our programs. We need to decide whether we want to be in the art business or whether we want to be in the building preservation business. We may want to reflect on our heritage and our founders for the wisdom to make that decision.
While it may seem like a tragedy, letting go of the house can allow for an investor to purchase the property and restore our Victorian building to its original beauty instead of letting it languish for lack of money and resources to prevent its deterioration.
Take a moment to dream with me. Imagine what we could do for our members and our community if we sold the house and were able to purchase a more modern facility with less maintenance on a main road where people could more easily see where we are, who we are, and what we do? One with better parking and accessibility for our physically challenged members?
And can you imagine a building with the flexibility to create our dream layout of spaces with well-lit galleries, studios, more storage, classrooms, a pottery studio with a kiln, a digital art lab, and a recording studio and video equipment to produce videos and art tutorials? Oh, the places we could go and the better we could serve our PEOPLE (members, artists, students, etc.) and share the joy of art!
With this picture painted with my mind’s eye, I see infinite possibilities and a bright future for the Guild with a renewed focus on our mission and our members. I also see a more sustainable business model for our organization which would allow us the ability to be a learning organization that can more readily respond to change. We would be better equipped to serve both present and future generations of artists.
So, as I leave the position of President, I invite you to consider our organization’s beginnings, our founders’ “why”s, and your own “why” for being a member of OCAG. What do you think is the best way the Guild can serve you and your fellow members?
What do you think will contribute to the Guild’s longevity?
The answer might be to let go of the building. The membership will likely be included in whatever is decided, whenever it is decided. I am just asking you to consider the possibilities and advantages of relieving the organization of a burden that drains resources that could be better used to add value to our members, our artists, and the community at large.
In the meantime, I ask you all to support the new 2024-2025 OCAG President, Executive Board, and Trustees. Please join me in thanking each and every one of these volunteers for stepping up to lead our fine organization. During their tenure, please answer the calls for help and for volunteers that come into your inbox. Most of all, invite your friends and families to visit and become members of the Guild. Help us grow more art, artists, and art lovers.
It has been both an honor and a pleasure to serve the Ocean County Artists’ Guild, an organization I dearly love. Thank you all for your support over these last two years. I really appreciate all of you. I wish you all the best and look forward to seeing you at future Guild gallery openings, events, classes, workshops, Art Chat, or Art Book Club!
Warm regards,
Kimberly A. Cesaretti
President (2022-2024)
Ocean County Artists’ Guild