Rain Couldn't Turn Me Away From Smithville's First Ever Arts Walk

On Saturday, Sept. 24, the Historic Town of Smithville had its first Arts Walk.

The day was organized by Underground owners Mike and Lucy Spagnola and drew artists and art sellers from as far away as Toms River.

The art found in the Underground is generally very graphic and very nontraditional. The two words we usually associate with graphic and nontraditional are Raymond and Tyler. So we asked Mr. Tyler to check out The Arts Walk for Ray’s List.

Little did we know, Raymond Tyler is an illustrator himself and signed up to sell and do on the spot comic illustrations, at the Arts Walk in preparation for the Greater Atlantic City Comic Convention coming up at the Shore Mall Oct. 9 and 10.

So here is Ray’s List providing an illustrator’s eye view of the art walk.

1. Rainy Days Always Get Me Down-Rain is magical. It can turn unframed art to lovely wet trash. The day was over cast and I kept one eye on my table and one eye on the sky. The turnout was great considering the rain almost never stopped the night before the Arts Walk. On Saturday, the weather was still overcast and I did have a couple of scares from drizzle that made me pack up early.
2. First Time Draw-I have been an artist all of my life. However about seven years ago I went to Wizard World Philly and fell back in love with producing comic book and sci-fi inspired art. It took me about three years to re-develop my comic book style skills enough to do on the spot sketches and illustrations. I would like to thank fellow artist Chris Gannon Clark, who bought both my comic art books and gave me my first “on the spot” commission ever. It was a picture of Batgirl and The Joker. I see why artists at comic book conventions tend to charge so much. You come up with a super cool idea; lay it out on the page and it’s the best thing you’ve done in a month. Then you hand it over to someone else for money and they have an original piece that can’t be reproduced.
3. Surrounded by Art-The beautiful thing about the Arts Walk was connecting with so much very different art. There were so many pieces I saw that I was jealous of in a healthy way. One artist had mini posters inspired by the writings of Edgar Allen Poe, another had hand crafted Star Trek art and accessories. Chris Ford had a painting that he hadn’t named but I called “Dueling Sea Monsters.” The picture placed a ship on a rough sea in between two giant sea monsters. Chris G. Clark had traditional paintings but also collages that were super expressive and painted frames as well. I had a very enjoyable time meeting diverse artists and seeing incredible ideas rendered on paper, glass, wood, and canvas.
4. Learning The Curve-“I don’t do art for the money.” That is my way of saying I didn’t sell much. However, this being my very first time really selling my art in a vending capacity, I learned a lot. So I will be ready for next year!
5. There’s Art Walk In The Spring-Organizer Mike Spagnola stated that he and the business owners of Smithville considered Arts Walk a success. They plan to do another in the spring.