Art All Night 2018 Turned into Art Barely 12 Hours

This is one of those times when I wish I posted closer to when events happened. This is a completely different post than the one I would have written on Saturday night. Like many, I was shocked and dismayed to wake up to the news that gunfire erupted at Art All Night, ruining lives and destroying the event. For now here are some links from previous years to give you a sense of how fantastic this event, which ran for 11 years without serious incident, has been.

2017

2016

2015

2011

Clearly we are fans of the event. Many of our friends and family both attend and/or display art. Many have said this year something felt off. I'm struggling with how I define off. This year we dropped off on Saturday morning instead of Friday night, and had no line. On the one hand, we felt lucky because it was a busy day and this freed up some of our time. On the other hand, I felt gypped. Part of the fun is checking out each other's art work and both seeing friends and making new ones. Whatever. I can get over that.

We usually go more than once over the 24-hour festival as the mood changes, and who goes shifts. First up, we have to figure out where our artwork is hanging and share that on social media. Must pose for a picture with the artwork.

Ashley's is the one in the gold frame by her head.
Next year I'll encourage her to point, too.

Then we wander around looking at the other pieces and hanging out with friends. After about 45 minutes, we came to the conclusion we didn't know anyone there. Again, that was odd.

Two odd strikes on the event for us -- one we have attended and participated in nearly every year since it's inception.

I decided to go back and check out the artwork some more, and try to find some friends (really, I do have friends, I do know people in the area). It took me a while to find a parking space I felt comfortable using (ladies, you know the drill -- well lit lot, near other festival goers), and I scored a really good spot labeled compact car in the main shopping center parking lot. I even noted good police presence.

I went inside around 9 PM, showing my hand stamp (it is a free event, but they like to keep a tally of how many people attend) from earlier. I looked at more artwork. I can never absorb it the first, or even the second time. We often return about three times, and still see more at the Selects Night held a week later. I was still surprised I did not bump into many people I know. I did see Christina and her family (family from Ashley's old school), Brittney and her bridal party (Ashley's art teacher), Tarshia (someone I used to work with), and Barbara (another freelancer). Considering how many people we normally see, that was really odd. Most people were outside. It was a warm night, and inside the Roebling Works building can feel like a furnace.

I left around 10 PM. As I was leaving I saw two white suburban couples walking about as if to say "Look at us ... can you believe we are in the 'hood at 10 PM!" Wonder what they thought when they heard the news.

Ashley had to wake up at 1:30 AM to meet up with her school mates heading to Alaska (poor baby). The bus left at 2:40 AM from the school parking lot. To the left meant going home. To the right meant returning to Art All Night (yes, the event runs for 24 hours straight, so a good way to spend the evening). We debated, but in the end sleep won out. The plan was to wake up early so we could go to Knoebels Amusement Park for their biannual convention of mechanical instruments (carousel organs, calliopes). A future blog post. If our artwork did not sell, then we were to return by 6 PM to pick it up. Knoebels is a three-hour drive for us.

Not too often a decision to go left vs. right could have changed our lives.

Before 3 AM shots rang out at Art All Night. Less than 12 hours after the event started.

When I woke up at 7 AM I checked Facebook (yeah, a habit) and heard the news. I was stunned, and disappointment, and upset, and rotating between all the stages of grief. Why? Who would do this? Is everyone okay? Do I know anyone there? Are my friends safe? What did it mean for the future of Art All Night? Would we be able to get our artwork back? How will ArtWorks recover financially from this? Will ArtWorks be able to recover at all? 

Early reports stated the gunman was killed, and 20 innocent bystanders (including a 13-year old child) were injured. Some critically. It sounds as if they are going to survive. The second gunman is in custody. All indications are this was gang related.

Hindsight is 20/20 they say. I can stand on my head and swear I felt the vibe was off, but it would have had more validity had I blogged about this on Saturday night. Other friends said they didn't stay as long because something felt off.

One friend said he smelled marijuana (something absent in the past when he has gone), the music was more rap (but, all types are encouraged, and he was only there an hour), more people were looking at their phones than the artwork (sign of the times?) and being rude when they bumped into him. He, too, did not see many people he knew (and he knows just about everyone) and left about an hour later -- less time than normal.

Reports are there were about 1,000 people at the event at that time. One report today said the police were telling the organizers to shut down the event because of fighting they had witnessed when the gun fire went off. A freelance friend was there when it happened and came out safely. Another friend was wounded and suffered a sprained wrist and some bruises. She is a reporter and has promised a first-person account which I will link to later. She was interviewed by the New York Times for 30 minutes, but they did not include her positive thoughts on the event. A scary comment made today was that this was a planned attack between two warring gangs.

Moms Demand Action, a group of people (mostly women) advocating for gun control had a table at the event. Their presence wearing bright red shirts was strong both times I went. I wonder what is going through their heads.

Now we wait. Art All Night finally sent out an email tonight (they posted a statement on Facebook yesterday, but not everyone is on Facebook) saying once they are allowed back in the building they will let people know how to pick up their artwork. No word on how many pieces were damaged or destroyed. Only reports there was a lot of blood.

Last year we displayed one of Honey Bunny's pieces for the first time. We talked about doing one this year, but for whatever reason did not (Too disorganized? A shady premonition? Uncomfortable displaying work at this event by a deceased artist?). I'm glad we didn't. The pieces we all displayed were photographs in Dollar Store frames -- completely replaceable. Hers would not have been replaceable.

My heartfelt thanks to everyone who reached out to us to make sure we were okay. Hug your family a little tighter. Realize that sometimes small decisions can make huge changes in your life.

UPDATE: PlanetPrinceton had a follow up story about increased security at the event and how the police were in the process of shutting down the event when the gunfire erupted.

Princeton YMCA 5K/10K

I did it. I signed up for the Disneyland Paris Semi (half) Marathon for the third year in a row, even though if you were to ask me in person I would say I hate running that far. I hate long training runs. I hate leaving my comfort zone.

But...Paris...ahh...Paris.

Or in my case...ahh...Liege, Belgium. The TGV stops at Disneyland Paris. From there it is a three-hour train ride to my other home. The place where I first lived without everything I knew -- my family, and even my language and culture. The place where I learned I can do it. I returned last year for the first time in nearly thirty years and found that feeling again. 

But I am getting ahead of myself. 

My usual training for fall half marathons is the 10K Rev Run in Washington Crossing, PA on July 4th and RunBucks' 15K in August. We'll be in Ohio celebrating my cousin Allie's marriage to Doug on the Fourth of July, and RunBucks does not seem to be offering their 15K this year. Time to look for plans B and C. There are a lot of nice parts about doing a sanctioned race -- top one being water stations, after that is camaraderie, a finisher's medal (=bragging rights), motivation to actually do it and do it well because I paid for it, and the focus. 

When I realized the Princeton YMCA was holding a 5K/10K race in early June I realized I should sign up for it. The Y is a good cause, so I knew the moneys raised would go help people.

The drawbacks? The weather -- we have had a very wet Spring, especially on weekends, and course -- it is the 5K route done twice. We actually went through the start line three times. Without awesome volunteers pointing us in the right direction, I'm sure I would have lost track of where I was supposed to go when. We went through the finish line twice. 

As for the weather, yesterday was near 90 degrees with thunderstorms. Today was 60 and overcast, but no rain or lightning. Much better!

A bonus I had not counted on was that Girls on the Run was doing their end of the season run today, too. They did the 5K, but since the 5K and 10K routes were the same, I got to cheer on the slow runners as I was finishing up my 10K. I did not see nearly as many familiar faces as expected.

I loved the signs along the route cheering me on.

Love the GOTR spirit!

I even received a finisher's medal. The 5K medal was orange.

A note to anyone from the Princeton YMCA, or any other group running a 5K in conjunction with a 10K, a volunteer said it would have helped her if the bibs were someone different -- say a green one for the 10K runners and an orange one for the 5K runners. This would help them direct where people who ask "which way should I go" to the right direction.

As for my time, I finished at 1:11 and change (need to look up the official time) -- about two minutes faster than my time at last year's RevRun. Go me!

CSA

Our CSA is finally open!! 

Half of you are saying "Yay! Mine, too." And half of you are saying "what are you talking about?"

A CSA is "community-supported agriculture."

Again, half of you are saying "Yay!" And half of you are scratching your heads.

It means we pay a local farmer $400 during their slow season, and in return they give us a box of what they grow every single week for about 20 weeks. I know I easily spend $20 a week on veggies. For me, this is a bargain.

Week 1:

You can see on the list we had some choice -- Swiss chard or spinach; leek or beet. The bonus of a potted herb meant I finally have a pot of lavender on my kitchen window sill. The choice of cut herbs means Don will be experimenting with cilantro. The goal is these veggies will encourage us to get our of our comfort zone and try new recipes. 

Ours is Pinelands, located at the major intersection in the Trenton Farmer's Market (next to Halo Farms). By "major intersection" I mean where the two aisles intersect. They could not have been friendlier. Probably not too late to sign up since this is week one.

Week 2:

So far the piles are manageable. I have a feeling as we dive deeper into growing season our bounty will grow each week. Not a fan of radishes and leeks. I do need to explore ways to use each new ingredient.

Week 3:

Week 4:

Week 5:

Week 6:

National Constitution Center in Philadelphia

I left it up to Don and Ashley to decide how we should spend Mother's Day this year. They came up with some ideas that would have been lovely only two days earlier -- before the cold front hit New Jersey bringing with it rain. Ideas included going for a family bike ride (something we don't do often enough) to wandering around Grounds for Sculpture (with everyone else and their mother, literally). With temperatures in the low 60s and rain, being outside did not seem appealing. I stepped in and offered an alternative -- the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, a place that had been on our wish list especially since learning about their Alexander Hamilton exhibit.

I took a chance and looked at the library website to see if they had museum passes available -- they did, meaning we could go for free. Unfortunately it meant a late start since the library did not open until 12:30 and we still wanted to go to 5 PM church, and it takes us an hour each way to go to Philadelphia. For free we could rush through the museum a bit.

For us the highlight of the museum was Signer's Hall in the George H.W. Bush Hall. All 42 signers of the Constitution, which took place a few hundred feet away in Independence Hall September 17, 1787, are represented by a life-size  bronze statue you can pose with. Ashley posed with Alexander Hamilton. 

Don posed with his favorite politician of the day (Ben Franklin). Mine, Thomas Jefferson, was in France at the time, therefore he does not have a statue.

Ashley also posed with James Madison, at 5'2 the shortest of the delegates. Standing only a few feet away from George Washington, it drove home the point that Washington was really tall, especially in that time.

Love this view of Independence Hall from the National Constitution Center.

The rest of the museum did not speak to us. The Hamilton exhibit they touted is basically a few artifacts, including a signed Hamilton: the musical playbill (missing Lin Manuel Miranda's autograph, alas), and a lock of Hamilton's hair snipped by his wife, Elizabeth Hamilton, the day he was killed. The neatest part was probably a representation in the floor of just how close Hamilton and Aaron Burr stood to each other (only 10 paces apart) on that fateful day. The exhibit on a whole was crammed into the lobby next to the education room. It was clearly designed to capitalize on the musical's fame. You could say it worked in our case, but we had free tickets and did not spend any money in the gift shop. We even scored free parking.

The show they encourage you see before starting basically repeated everything that was on Ashley's most recent history test (which we helped her study for). One woman did a lot of talking and moved around the room on cue while some images were shown. If you need a brush up on the history of the Constitution, it is worth the 30 minutes. We could have put that time to better use.

Upstairs is a huge round room filled with artifacts showing how important the Constitution is to us still. It covers history up to 2008 when Barack Obama was sworn in. There is a space for future growth, so maybe there will be an addition in another decade or two. It was almost too overwhelming. Some neat tidbits such as when corporations were recognized as people (late 18th century), and lots of artifacts such as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's judicial robe. The point driven home is that what our Founding Fathers did was radically new and we should be proud it has hung on this long. May our country thrive and be a leader.

We are glad we went, but at $14.50 for an adult ticket ($11 for teenagers), I can't recommend the museum. Hopefully lots of other people found it more enjoyable than we did.

Handwritten Letters

Letters have been on my mind lately. Recently I received a few handwritten letters in the mail. What a smile a surprise handwritten note brings, even if the same words were used in an email. Also lately I read a collection of letters found in my in-law's house. When I first started cleaning out their home I hoped to find letters from World War II, only to realize they met after World War II.

Instead I have letters from Honey Bunny's mom to Honey Bunny, and more letters between Honey Bunny and Pop pop from when she stayed in Ohio with her mom, and he stayed home. There are more letters from when the children went to college, but I did not read them.

The conclusion I came to, is these letters are the pre-cursor to email. Short snippets of their day mailed to each other for three to thirteen cents depending on the year. The ones I found were written in the 1950s, 1960, and 1970s. The ones in the 1970s talk about Honey Bunny's mom preparing for her move from Lancaster, OH to Meadow Lakes in East Windsor, NJ. She talks about furniture and other items I recently found homes for. Reading her letters I grew to feel she was a real person, something I was not exposed to before. She died after I met Don, but also after she was living in a vegetative state.

Here are a couple of examples of the charming ways people communicated forty years ago:

December 20, 1976

Dear Joyce,

This has been another beautiful day. I went to church by cab, had dinner at McBees, and walked home with Edith.

I'm not at all sure this will reach you before the weekend, but did want to tell you I again have an invitation to Deckard's for Christmas dinner, and I plan to go. Linda insists on coming for me the afternoon of Christmas day. However, if the weather is "mean" I'd much prefer to stay indoors -- at home. We'll see!

I'll drop this not off at the post office in the morning when I'm taking care of other errands down town. This includes the purchase of some of Mrs. Stover's choice boxed candy to take to Deckards, finally picking up Goslin's book and buying taxi-cab tokens at the Mayor's office.

For some time, I have been paying $1.25 to get anywhere I need to go, and $1.25 to get back home. Now due to a gov't grant, all people 65 or over can buy a 50 cent token for bus fare. This has been talked about for a long time. While most of us wondered if it would happen. The fare is 50 cents for most trips I'd need to take. For a trip into another "zone," the 50 cent token can be as as part of the larger fare.

Isn't that great?

I sure hope you will soon be relived of your swine flu "shot" troubles. 

My love and best wishes to all of you -- and may your holidays be very happy.

Love,Mother

In these letters her mom referred to her as "Honey," considering we called her Honey Bunny it brought a smile to my face.

Just one more.

January 6, 1977

Dear Joyce,

I was pleased to receive Bob's nice letter. Please tell him so. 

I've just now come in from my weekly trip to Big Bear, and want to get a few lines off to you before the next blast of winter rolls in. When it does, I'll be hibernating.

I've surely made good use of the puzzle books lately. It hasn't been quite so cold, but snowy and icy for getting around.

Last Sunday Edith and I ate dinner the hotel with the V sisters. I think I told you that they have taken up living quarters at "Sherman House," so after eating they invited us upstairs to see their new quarters. They have lovely furnishing (their own) and seem very pleased with the move.

You have surely been doing some interesting things lately. I'm glad for you.

With love to you all,Mother

I do love the historic note about the bus fare in the first letter, and the reference to thanking Pop-pop for his letter -- why didn't she just write to him herself? It is not as if she didn't have his address. In most notes Don's grandmother wrote about the weather, going shopping, going out to dinner, updates on her friends and family members ... all the things I put in emails to my friends. Communication hasn't changed in the past 60+ years, only the means to communicate (paper and pen with neat penmanship vs. electronic missives).

The next question is what to do with these letters. My plan was to read the notes then throw them out. A historic re-enactor friend was horrified at that thought -- she suggested donating them to the local historical society. I emailed my contact at the historical society and await her reply. What would you do with two shoe boxes full of letters not involving you?

Wedding Dresses at Howell Farm

I know the rain and temperature plummet in New Jersey thwarted the plans my family made for me today. Who wants to go for a bike ride when it is 52 degrees, cloudy, and threatening rain when only a couple of days ago it was in the 70s, sunny, with low humidity? Change of plans. Time to look for something indoors to do. 

Yesterday I went to Howell Living History Farm for their two-day pop up exhibit of wedding gowns. Docent Kim hoped she could gather about 15 gowns to put on display. She asked everyone who works there, and the Friends of Howell Farm, and ended up with over 30 dresses dating from 1890 (found when someone donated farm equipment) to 2016. 

Of course not every year is represented. There is a sizable gap from about 1915 to the 1930's Kim attributes to World War I and the Depression. I wish I took note of the actual years.

In the earliest days of this collection, unless they were wealthy, women wore their Sunday best when getting married. They might have something made for the day, but it would show up again as their best dress. White was not a popular color for a wedding dress because it showed too much dirt. Women preferred ivory if they went with a light color, or light blue (seen in the church as synonymous with the Virgin Mary).

The dresses are arranged roughly chronologically. The names of the bride and groom are listed, and often a fun fact. There are also framed wedding pictures and other wedding ephemera to enjoy. As always, the exhibit is free, though they will happily accept a free will offering.

The oldest dress (1890). The little one was a flower girl dress.

If you are enjoying these pictures, check out my other posts about wedding dresses:

Grandmother's Wedding Dress on display in Columbus, OH

Mom's Wedding Dress on display at the Kuser Mansion in Hamilton, NJ

Our wedding pictures

While cleaning up Honey Bunny's house I found her wedding dress in the attic. Sadly we had to toss it as it had disintegrated over the years. She sewed it herself. It was darling. However, even my inner archivist could see it could not be saved.

If you can make it today, the dresses will be on display from noon to 4. They are in the climate controlled building closest to the parking lot. If the weather holds out, you can stroll up to the farm to see the baby animals, farm house, and other sights seen on a turn-of-the-century working farm. Again, it is all free, though good will offerings are warmly accepted.

One note: the bridge near the farm has been removed. Best to approach the farm from Route 29 instead of the back way.

Indoor Mini Golf for a Cause

Last week Stacy invited me to the Rescue Mission's 14th Annual Adam Shanks Mission Miniature Golf Tournament. For $60 people could play 18 holes of mini golf on the third floor of the Rescue Mission in Trenton. The idea alone captured my imagination. Stacy reminded me this would be a good opportunity for me to do some networking, a skill I need to exercise more often as my search for a part-time job continues. 

The real draw was that her law firm donated two of Honey Bunny's paintings. 

They are hanging about a dozen of her inner city paintings in their office, but wanted to share her artwork with others. 

Mary Gay, the tireless leader of The Rescue Mission, admired her artwork and is working to connect me with a local museum who might be interested in displaying some of her art in an upcoming exhibit. 

Stacy took her artwork and framed it using a mat cutter and very basic frames. She has inspired us to do the same with more of her artwork, though upgrading on the quality of frames. 

The golfing was what you might expect from inside an old factory. Local non-profits and companies sponsored holes. People teamed up with their friends to play golf. It was a very unique fundraiser, that is also very appealing. I hope they raised a lot of money.