It’s been a year since the world we knew changed. No one would have anticipated when lockdowns began that our lives would change so dramatically. Yet here we are a year later, and so much has changed. I began musing about what people have done to make their world a bit brighter and one aspect became clear to me, how creative people are. And how we all have a strong commitment to our community. When Italy was on lockdown, people came out on their balconies and sang. When concerts were canceled, musicians played together via the latest technology. And when we at RiverArts were faced with the possibility of shutting our doors, we rallied and came together to make sure RiverArts would continue to be there to serve its community.

Thanks to many talented people (those with and without artistic skills) RiverArts is stronger than ever. Re-imagining oneself is difficult enough, but to re-imagine an entire organization is another task in itself. Moving to a collective model, staff, committees, and board members have begun to working side-by-side to make collaborative decisions. River Arts has always been a grassroots organization and hope that by adopting this new model of cooperative leadership, River Arts can begin a new renaissance period!

Having faith in the community that birthed RiverArts, we knew your support would get us through. We want to thank everyone who generously donated to our annual campaign this year. We were astonished to see the number of gifts, especially to see that our everyday supporters increased their usual gifts to us from previous years. In addition to our special matching opportunity, we were able to bring in $20,000 more than we projected, which will help us to run our Summer Camps, offer our free community projects each season, and continue to provide art programs for everyone in our community. Are we out of the woods? Not yet, but all of you have kept the wolf from the door.

River Arts is committed to you, our community. And so, thanks to the creativity of the board and staff, we have brought some amazing projects to be enjoyed and fun events where everyone can join in. We have had fabulous shows in our galleries, we continue to provide a variety of online classes and in-person classes, we have expanded into Livestream broadcasts for our Music and Movement Series, hosted by the Blue Man Group on the first Saturday of each month, and our Clay Studio Chat series, and we even have beefed up our small gift shop with new and exciting goods from local artisans.

Spring is just around the corner, new growth begins and so does RiverArts. We will have an exciting new community project, The Birdhouse Project. Like our Scarecrows, this past Fall and our Tapestry Project, now on display at the Morristown Post Office, River Arts is committed to provided art opportunities to anyone who wants to. Artists of all skills are encouraged to contribute to a vibrant outdoor art installation at no cost to them. This summer we will have another community project and subsequent activities for kids and grown-ups alike.

Art is for everyone and everyone can do Art. Just like our response to Covid, you too can re-imagine your world by making it brighter with our help.

-Peggy Smith, Board of Directors