Dover Art Week Off To A Busy Start

Fourth annual festival celebrates the community's creatives and their supporters.

Dover Art Week got off to a busy start last Saturday at the Richards Building.

By Heath Rumble/Photos by Walter F. Rodriguez

The fourth annual Dover Art Week kicked off Sunday afternoon with a sidewalk festival in Meridia Transit Plaza in Downtown. The convergence of artists and musicians, dubbed "Art on Blackwell", represented the creative spirit, with people contributing individual works to collaborate on a shared community experience. 

The Enrique Conte band provided rocking tunes, while painters, ceramicists and even candle-makers provided stunning aesthetics (and in the last case, great smells, too. Walter Rodriguez, Executive Director of The Amp — Dover’s new arts center and performance space located right across the street in the renovated Richards Building — welcomed residents, guests, funding and programming partners and introduced the town’s upcoming week of creative celebrations he ran point on organizing.

The visual artists stationed around the Richards Building included ceramicist Shelley Dean. She rents a studio in The Amp where she creates adorable and hilarious Monster Mugs. “I give each one a name and a backstory,” she tells an attendee of the fun-colored mugs that feature various numbers of eyes, fangs, and silly expressions, “I never make the same monster twice, so they’re all unique.” Dean's monsters boast impressive speckled designs; she recently introduced "mini" Monster figurines.

Diego Rivas showed his diverse works for Art Week attendees.

Around the corner from Dean, Diego Rivas presented his paintings of subjects ranging from Old Western Native Americans and cowboys, to Jesus and Renaissance-era women. His style looks photo-real with a fluid form. Rivas follows the rules of painting, but adds a twist: “firm edges, lost edges, and soft edges on some areas. Then at the end, I try to go thicker so you can see that texture.” He also featured a painting of his wife, Paola, beaming in a cowboy hat — an image showing her strength during her ongoing battle with pancreatic cancer. 

Painter Fanery Valencia shared the joy of art breaking through darker, real-life circumstances. “It's very sad because, you know, this is a beautiful moment for Dover. But unfortunately, the people didn't come because ICE is around,” she said, referring to the recent detentions federal ICE agents have conducted in town, which seemed to dampen the attendance for the art sidewalk fiesta. The week-long schedule of Art Week events has been reduced to minimize unwanted intrusions on the community.

The variety of colorful paintings lined the Blackwell Street exhibit.

Despite the challenges, this was still an achievement for Valencia, who explained with a grin that this is the first time she has ever presented her art, and hoped to sell some pieces in the future.

Wyatt Rydlewski, a touring musician and actor who lent his audio tech skills to the event, explained this was a new experience for him as well: “This is the first time I’ve run sound for a town event like this.” And it presented unique challenges. Luckily, Rydlewski excels at improvising, both with instruments and gear. “One of the fun things about running sound is navigating like little contingencies and stuff,” he explained, as Rodriguez came up to praise the value of having “somebody like Rydlewski, who knows what he’s doing.” And it showed, the clear audio quality in the plaza provided the soundtrack for those browsing the artist booths across the street.

Like Rodriguez’s introduction, the Enrique Conte band performed in both English and en Español, singing covers of R.E.M. as well as many Spanish numbers, like Lobo Hombre en París by La Unión.

The Enrique Conte Band performed in the outdoor courtyard of the Meridia Transit Plaza apartments.

"Thank you so much Dover for showing up and supporting our music," Conte said, also giving credit to The Amp and IDEA Cultural. "From the bottom of our hearts, we appreciate it."

Alberto and Luz, a couple who enthusiastically danced to and applauded the music, appreciated the songs highlighting Spanish culture, exclaiming the music “en Español is nice! I like it!” They’d heard about the event from friends, and were excited to learn about the other Dover Art Week offerings, such as the "Basement Bash" Saturday night, August 1 at The Amp. CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ART WEEK CALENDAR. 

The rest of Dover Art Week will include mini-classes on week nights, such as Sculpture Night at the Richards Building, hosted in the restored third-floor office of Dover’s first mayor, George Richards, where students can learn to sculpt air-dry clay. The "Basement Bash" will celebrate local artists and musicians as well, highlighting the ways that art is deeply embedded in our human experience.

“I love painting. When I have nothing to do, I paint,” Valencia said of how ingrained artwork has become in her life.

The newly renovated Richards Building will host many Dover Art Week events.

In a statement following the event, Rodriquez was grateful “to the Town of Dover and our partners — West Morris Capital, Morris Arts, the Partnership for Maternal and Child Health, and the Dover Public Library — for this festival, a much-needed bright spot during a dark time for many local families and individuals.”

It’s clear that art, with its awesome power to unite, will continue to have a home in Dover through the many groups who foster the creative spirit here.