Love Filled the Air at M.A.C.'s 2nd Saturday Event

This month's 2nd Saturday, also Valentine's weekend, saw plenty of couples strolling on and around State Street, eyeing wares in the many local textile and collectible shops like , and for presents, and restaurants like and were plenty busy serving up romantic dinners-for-two. Window dressings in places like boasted the expected torrents of red and heart motifs.

The Media Arts Council's (M.A.C.) hosts a 2nd Saturday event every month in downtown Media where businesses can stay open late and feature the arts. Local artists display their work inside a storefront window or a musician belts a tune inside a restaurant or coffee shop for all to listen. The 2nd Saturday events are a way for all to get involved with the arts right in your backyard. 

The main event of the evening took place at the , where community theatre group Thespis, Etc. presented a 45-minute Gilbert & Sullivan medley, including interim narrations from Mike Berman to set each number up.

Deborah O'Rourke and Brenda Gartman were this month's featured artists, and their work was displayed in the two front windows of Bryn Mawr Trust. O'Rourke currently works primarily in oils, but also does watercolor and porcelain painting.

"My work tends to be realistic and is drawn from nature, as well as my travels to Ireland, the Southwest U.S. and the Jersey shore," she says.

Gartman was selling her jewelry and mixed media in Quincy's Saturday night, while O'Rourke could be found at the busy  holding a demo on painting fine china.

The Media Arts Council set up a table featuring the upcoming film festival (to be held in March), including a televised trailer. Art strollers got to listen to live music from a three-piece band, and if for some reason 2nd Saturday didn't have you feeling good already, a masseuse had set up shop to work any remaining kinks out.