Montco Gets Creative With Art on Trails

Last month, Montgomery Bar Association wrapped up its 2016 Courting Art program with a dedication ceremony at the Montgomery County Family Court conciliators building near the courthouse. The newest works of art were unveiled during a ceremonial ribbon-cutting.

Unlike in previous years, entries from this year’s art contest and exhibition were accepted from artists of all ages and were intended to appeal to children and families who often spend time in family court, an area frequently occupied by “families and children in distress,” said Judge Carolyn T. Carluccio.

Courting Art attendees enjoy the gallery/Photo Courtesy Montgomery Bar Association

Congratulations go out to Carluccio, who has chaired the Bar Association’s Community Outreach Committee and Courting Art program since the program’s inception four years ago. Carluccio can be proud of the program because visitors to the courthouse, especially jurors, often comment about how much they enjoy viewing the art during their time in the building.

But there’s another county art initiative, inspired by the Courting Art program, of which many people might not be aware.

Anne Leavitt-Gruberger of the Montgomery County Planning Commission was on-hand at the Courting Art celebration to speak to participating artists on behalf of Creative Montco, a new countywide arts initiative that has developed an “Art on our Trails” program.

“We’re literally putting people’s artwork on banners that are being hung along our county trail system,” Leavitt-Gruberger said, encouraging Courting Art participants to join the initiative. “We’d reproduce your artwork and put it on banners and put it along the county trail system, here on the Schuylkill River Trail.

“We have some banners right now in Pottstown and we have some hanging in Schwenksville along the Perkiomen Trail. It’s a great way to get your artwork in a venue that you wouldn’t otherwise think of as an art gallery,” Leavitt-Gruberger said. “It gets a lot of eyes. We get a million people on our trail system each year. That’s pretty significant.”

There would be no cost to artists, other than the donation of some high quality photos of their work, organizers said.

Mr. Everybody's Business thinks it’s a creative idea, trails becoming the county’s newest art gallery.

To learn more about the program, artists are encouraged to contact Leavitt-Gruberger via email at aleavitt@montcopa.org or at 610-278-3727.

You can visit the Creative Montco website here: creativemontco.net