A new evening market will get art out of the galleries and into the community thanks to a partnership between the Sackville Farmers’ Market and Struts Gallery.
Art in the Park will feature around 20 art vendors across various mediums, including at least one food truck and a performance, and will take place from 5:30-8:30 pm on Saturday, July 18, in the Bill Johnstone Memorial Park.
Though the event is a first for both organizations, it’s one that just made sense, said Emma Diamond, the market manager for the Sackville Farmers’ Market.
“ We are a community-oriented market. We want to support the community,” said Diamond. “We want to support local businesses and local entrepreneurs, and we want to support buying local and sustainable food systems and all of that. And I think it all kind of plays in together in the broader sense of just supporting each other and supporting a community.”
Listen to the audio below:
A perfect pairing
The partnership started when Déja Defilippis, the summer open studio coordinator for Struts, contacted Diamond about Struts having a booth at the Saturday market.
Afterwards, Diamond had an idea to utilize the gallery’s contacts in the local art community.
“ I was like, ‘wait, this is a perfect opportunity. Did you wanna collaborate with us for Art in the Park?'”
A chance to leverage Struts’ connections to bring art to people in a new way was an easy decision to make, said Defilippis.
“ If I can try and be a part of fostering spaces for people to be together and have dialogue and talk about their interests and talk about art . . . then I’m very motivated to try and make a space for that, because I think that’s lovely.”
Open call
So the pair got to work organizing and, over the next couple of weeks, put the event together.
When they put out a call for interested vendors a couple of weeks ago, it was important to both to offer as much freedom as possible to those who applied, said Defilippis.
“ This is a very open event so we wanted it to feel like people could come excited with their ideas for the event. So if that’s selling their crafts and their artwork, that’s very welcome. If it’s demonstrations, then that is also welcome.”
Diamond hopes that freedom will allow community members to potentially see art in a new light and to recognize how they can support the local art scene by being present and coming together for events like this one.
“I think art can be a lot of things, and I think even just the strong sense of community connection that Sackville has is art in a sense.”
