Public can participate during workshops at Strathmere’s Schiavo Library this week
OCEAN CITY — The Ocean City Arts Center has been working on community art installations at two area libraries, and there is still an opportunity to help create the one that will be erected in Strathmere.
Chase Jackson, executive director of the OCAC, said the organization secured a grant from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and state Council on the Arts to operate a community-based program that addresses the theme of climate resilience and coastal flooding through original site-specific art work.
Jackson said the OCAC secured the grant, which is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and was paired with an artist who was a recipient as well.
Jackson said the OCAC and four other state nonprofit organizations completed the process together as a group, judging the submitted artwork and narrowing it down to the artist who “made the best case for the project, how they would use their art to address the theme.”
The OCAC was paired with Jessica Mungekar, 49, of Washington Township, who said she applied for the grant through a CAFA (call for artists) website.
“I saw this opportunity to make community-engaged public art in a few different towns that were selected for this grant,” she said, noting she applied for Camden and Ocean City. “I was really intrigued when I got a call from the Ocean City Arts Center.”
Mungekar said Jackson chose her because “my work was so unique from other people’s proposals. She thought it would be a good fit.”
She works in cement and concrete, making spherical sculptures as small as 5 inches to as big as 50 inches.
Jackson said part of the OCAC’s long-range strategic plan is to bring the reach of the center outside the facility, which is on the second flood of the Ocean City Community Center at 17th Street and Simpson Avenue.
“We’re getting funding from the state and realized we must serve areas outside Ocean City,” she said.
Jackson said the OCAC already had a relationship with the Longport Public Library, where it holds workshops monthly, and reached out to the Rita Schiavo Memorial Library in the Strathmere section of Upper Township.
The first installation was unveiled June 17 at the Longport Historical Museum.
Two workshops are coming up in Strathmere, at 6 p.m. June 29 and 4 p.m. July 13, before the project’s unveiling, which is scheduled for 5 p.m. July 20 in conjunction with the Wetlands Institute’s terrapin release program sponsored by the Strathmere Fishing and Environmental Club.
Mungekar said during the workshops, she will present participants with “very broad-brushed instructions” for collaboration on painting a large sphere.
She said the workshop will start with a brainstorming session on “what it means to be resilient, thoughts and feelings around the community about coastal flooding, how they have been impacted and how they would like to see the community move forward to empower resilience individually and as a collective.”
Participants will make sketches and then come together to form one image to paint on the large sphere.
On July 13, there will be a short presentation about coastal flooding in regards to moon phases and tides, and then participants will be able to paint their own 5-inch spheres for the project.
When the large sphere is completed, Mungekar will take it home and “fill in the blanks, preserving their images and turning it into one cohesive image.”
She also will take the 5-inch spheres to seal them properly so they are safe in all weather before creating the installation.
Mungekar explained that she makes the spheres by applying acrylic paste to a ball, some as large as a yoga ball. After that hardens into a shell, she applies a fiberglass-based mesh and a layer of concrete, repeating a couple of times.
When that cures, she sands the spheres and gives them a nice exterior finish and base coat of paint for the students.
“To carry my methodology to other places, to do community-based storytelling through images on my spheres is a very exciting prospect,” Mungekar said.
She said people of any age can participate in the workshops, noting the first one in Longport included 20 to 25 adults and children.
“Part of what they are doing as individuals is making personal art that will be incorporated into a public work for a time,” Jackson said.
She said the entire program offers a way for the OCAC to spread awareness of its gallery and art classes.
“Lots of people don’t know we exist in this building,” she said.
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff