Cosmic Summer Scavenger Hunt In Montclair: 2025 Events

MONTCLAIR, NJ — The following news release comes courtesy of Tiny Gallery. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site.

Get ready for lift-off. This summer, Tiny Gallery invites you to blast off into a universe of creativity, curiosity, and community. The Cosmic Summer Scavenger Hunt is a season-long celebration featuring space-age installations by High Bridge, NJ, mixed-media artist Gabe Chiarello. It’s a town-wide scavenger hunt, part nebula, part neighborhood, with a rocket-fueled mission: find art, win ice cream, and have an interstellar summer!

Each of Chiarello’s five interactive installations feels plucked from another dimension—part vintage boardwalk, part lunar daydream. Expect orbiting ice cream trucks, Saturn-inspired ice cream cones, an original jingle composed by Chiarello, and a tribute to the dizzying cult-fave carnival ride: The Gravitron. These are more than sculptures; they’re portals. You don’t just look—you seek, you discover, you get ice cream!

“The best kind of public art is stumbled upon,” says Tiny Gallery co-founder Francesca Castagnoli. “It’s unexpected and interrupts your busy day—in the best way. Suddenly, you stop, lean in to look and that’s when the magic happens.”

The first installation touches down at Tiny Gallery Flagship, 8 Stanford Place in Montclair. From there, the remaining four intergalactic art galleries will beam down in surprise locations across town, shifting throughout the season like planets in playful orbit.

How to Join the Cosmic Quest:

• Start your journey at Constellation Station—8 Stanford Place to scan the online clue sheet
• Track down the other four installations across Montclair
• DM @tinygallerymontclair when you find them all (no spoilers for fellow spacewalkers!)
• Win free ice cream and other orbit-worthy treats
• Tag @tinygallerymontclair and @gabechiarello on Instagram to share the fun

This isn't just an art show or just a scavenger hunt. It's a community-wide, kid-friendly, creativity-fueled adventure designed to surprise, inspire, and entertain.

“This work is heavily inspired by vintage Jersey Shore boardwalk signage, beaches, rides, silly space alien imagery, ray-guns, cosmic bowling, and roller rinks. They started out as paintings and morphed into 3D works,” Chiarello says of the art that will be on view. “With involvement from Tiny Gallery, those sculptures have turned into an all-out immersive event that brings elements from the work into the real world.”

>> EVENT INFO: Cosmic Summer Scavenger Hunt Launch Party with Free Ice Cream, Sunday, June 8, from 4 to 6 p.m., 8 Stanford Place, Montclair, NJ (outdoors)

Join us for a cosmic-fueled afternoon to celebrate the happy weirdness of Gabe Chiarello’s installations and kick off the Cosmic Summer Scavenger Hunt. The event will feature:

• The unveiling of all five installations
• Exclusive Scavenger Hunt Clue Map
• Free ice cream from an on-site truck
• A special appearance by Captain Colonel Cosmic (don’t ask—just come)
• Props, giveaways, and photo ops galore
• Don’t miss the cosmic kickoff. Art, imagination, and ice cream await!

About the Artist

Gabe Chiarello is a New Jersey-based visual artist and multi-instrumentalist. Never high-brow or self-serious, Chiarello’s work is colorful, whimsical, and decidedly fun. Tapping into childhood inspiration—artwork that doesn’t just live on walls—Chiarello’s most recent output is some of his most imaginative and accessible to any age demographic. Chiarello likens it to looking at the world like a Rorschach Test, seeing hidden images and meanings within mundane objects and pulling them to the surface with a playful and creative mind.

About Tiny Gallery

Tiny Gallery creates joyful public art installations in unexpected places. By turning everyday spaces into moments of rocket-fueled wonder, we invite the community to pause, participate, and feel a little more connected.

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