Chairman: Teresa Scarpato
508-904-7039

Click here for the GFWC Arts Community Service Program from the 2012-2014 GFWC Club Manual.
Click here for the Arts Information Please pages.
Click here for the Arts Report Cover Sheet.
Click here for the Arts and Photography Contests.

GFWC Partners: GFWC partners are the organizations listed with whom GFWC has established a formal relationship and mutual understanding. Our partners offer unique and customized services: materials, speakers, kits, and/or additional information specifically designed for GFWC clubs. They are aware of GFWC clubs’ specific needs, our organizational structure, and have a signed Memorandum of Understanding with GFWC.

American Mural Project – www.AmericanMuralProject.org
The American Mural Project is an organization focused on creating the largest collaborative piece of indoor artwork in the world, a celebration of American ingenuity, productivity, and commitment to work. The piece, when finished, will be a three dimensional-painting, measuring 120 feet long, five stories high, and nearly 10 feet deep. It is made of a wide variety of materials, including honeycomb aluminum panels, fiberglass, ceramic tiles, fabric, marble, and blown glass. The mural’s home is a complex of former mill buildings in Winsted, Connecticut; a town built on the work the mural celebrates. With the exhibit and an adjacent arts center open to the public, this complex will be a focal point for AMP’s multi-disciplinary curriculum and a cultural center.

• Faces Make Places: Celebrating Workers in Our Communities: Honor the people who work in your community with this innovative art initiative. How many people do you come in contact with every day whose work you admire but never get a chance to recognize? Honoring a deserving person or group allows the entire community to celebrate their skills and contributions. Clubs are only limited by their own imagination as they pursue these projects. Faces Make Places can help build community spirit in your town while, spreading the mission of the American Mural Project.

Art Project Ideas:

• Sponsor an Arts Contest in the Schools:  Choose a theme (a holiday or tied to your town history in some way) and promote a contest in the schools.  Work with a local business (banks are usually very receptive) to showcase the winners for a month or so.  Give simple prizes to the winners.  Kids will love winning something and it will encourage them to create art.  For example, in Marlborough, a former shoe town, we could sponsor a contest called “If the Shoe Fits” and ask kids to draw or paint something that features shoes. 

• Recycled Art Fundraiser:  Collect odds and ends and make 25 or so bags of “stuff.”  They can be empty spools of thread, a piece of rope, left over nuts and bolts, whatever you can come up with.  Put a lot of variety in each bag.  Then “sell” each bag (suggested price - $25 but choose what you think your community will pay and create as many bags as you think will sell).  The idea is the artist must create a work of art using all the contents of his or her bag (you should keep a tally of what is in each bag so when you judge you know if they used all the items).  Get donations for prizes, find some “celebrity” judges and see if a local business will let you display the winners.  It’s a great way to promote both art and conservation and engage artists in your community.

• Be a Local TV Star!  Take advantage of your local cable access television station if you have one.  Usually they offer classes on using the equipment.  Propose a show about the activities your club is involved in.  If your club appears regularly on TV, you get more exposure.  It’s free and fun for those involved!  You surely have a drama queen somewhere in your club who could serve as hostess, right?

• Other ideas
• • Start a mural project in your town.  You can get lots of ideas and information from (http://communityarts.blogspot.com).
  • Sponsor a free pass to an arts museum through your local library.  Libraries usually have passes to all of the major local and Boston-area arts museums and your club could sponsor one.
  • Do something for Youth Art Month (March).  Plan ahead!
  • Promote the GFWC contests for Youth Short Story Writing and Youth Poetry (see GFWC Club Manual for details - http://www.gfwc.org/ClubManual)
  • Promote within club the GFWC contests for Member Short Story and Member Poetry. (see GFWC Club Manual for details http://www.gfwc.org/ClubManual)
  • Sponsor ads in local and school theater playbills or programs.
  • Sponsor an “Oldies” dance at a senior center.
    
    

Organizations to consider:

VSA Massachusetts The State Organization of Arts and Disability
VSA MA promotes the involvement of people of all abilities in the cultural life of our communities. www.VSAMass.org

New England Foundation for the Arts

The New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) is a nonprofit organization that  provides leadership and resources that benefit artists, the public, arts funders, and policymakers throughout New England and beyond. 
www.NEFA.org

Mass Cultural Council
The Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) is a state agency that promotes excellence, access, education, and diversity in the arts, humanities, and interpretive sciences to improve the quality of life for all Massachusetts residents and contribute to the economic vitality of our communities.
www.MassCulturalCouncil.org

Youth Audiences of Massachusetts
Young Audiences of Massachusetts is one of the state's leading nonprofits focused on providing students with access to quality arts programs.
www.YaMass.org

GFWC of Massachusetts Junior Membership ARTS Contest!

Purpose:Visually represent the width and breath of Junior Membership in Massachusetts to illustrate GFWC of MA president Mary Ann Pierce’s theme TEAM –Together Everyone Accomplishes More.

Plan:

• Each club will be provided with a blank, community puzzle piece.
• Your club’s challenge is to visually represent your club on that puzzle piece.

• Have a club member do it?
• Spend part of a meeting deciding what should go on it? Does one thing really represent your club?
• Have a social meeting and bring magazines and cut out and make a collage on the piece that will best represent themes of your club.

• Your club name should appear somewhere on the puzzle piece within the art.
• Bring or mail your puzzles pieces (Teresa Loftin Scarpato, 902 Applebriar Ln, Marlborough, MA 01752) by the annual meeting where we will assemble the puzzle and photograph it.

Prizes:

• Prizes will be awarded for most creative and representative pieces.
  

Important Art Dates to Remember

• February – Library Lovers Month
• March – Youth Art Month
• April – National Poetry Month
• May – National Photography Month
• October – National Arts and the Humanities Month, America for the Arts