WAA Benefit Art Supplies Silent Auction & Sale

The Westfield Art Association will be holding a special event at First Congregational Church at 125 Elmer Street on Sunday, November 22. WAA members & friends are invited to join us on that date as we celebrate the artistic life of Betsy Lee Styskal, a long-time member of both FCC and the Westfield Art Association, with a silent auction of her artwork, art supplies & art materials.
Click to enlarge
For those of you who did not know Betsy, she was a noted graphic designer and a prodigious painter, drawer, printmaker and bookmaker. She was passionate about the quality of her tools and materials, and worked in three separate studios that she built into her charming home in Mountainside. 
Betsy knew that she would not live forever, and could not bear the thought that her art supplies would one day end up unused or in the trash. Over the past month, we have carefully moved Betsy’s art supplies – including brushes, paints, papers, tools, books, drawing tables, artist lamps, Macintosh monitors, printers, etc – to FCC and readied them for sale to our members & friends.
We hope that you will join us in FCC’s Ketchum Hall at 1pm on the 22nd. There will be a small presentation on Betsy made by Brooke Gardiner, followed by the sale of her artwork and supplies. This is a marvelous opportunity to purchase high-quality artist tools and supplies at a fraction of their original cost, so we hope to see all you art enthusiasts and encourage you to invite any young student artists to join in this special event.
This silent auction & sale will be a fundraiser for the Westfield Art Association.

CALL FOR ART: Mulberry House Fall/Winter WAA Member Exhibit

CALL FOR ART

The Westfield Art Association is pleased to be exhibiting member art at Mulberry House on Westfield Avenue in Westfield. The first WAA exhibition at Mulberry House was a huge success and we have been invited to exhibit our work again form the Fall and Winter seasons.

We are currently seeking artwork of all mediums and styles (unfortunately they can not accommodate  sculpture that is not able to be hung on a wall) that follow the theme of Fall, Winter, kitchen, farm and food. Please send up to three jpgs for submission to westfieldartassociation@gmail.com. Please use the email subject “Mulberry House Fall Exhibition.” Please include the following information for each piece submitted: artist name, title, medium, dimensions, retail price. Submission deadline is November 9, 2015. This exhibition is only open to active Westfield Art Association members. If you have not renewed your WAA membership, please do so today so that you may participate in these exciting exhibition opportunities.

About MULBERRY HOUSE: With 3 separate dining rooms and lots of sunlight and windows, Mulberry House is a great spot to order a pot of tea, along with a selection of delicious tea sandwiches, and English style scones with clotted cream and home-made jam. Weekend brunch offer items such as Eggs Benedict, fluffy omelets, strawberry cheesecake stuffed with French toast, and many more. Dinner service features local farm and market ingredients from New Jersey utilizing the freshest ingredients from the surrounding landscape. Chef Anders changes the menu weekly and includes 4-5 appetizers, 5 entrees, tapas and fabulous desserts.

Recap: CreativiTEA Party

This afternoon’s social event brought together members of many local arts groups, including the Roselle Art Association, Scotch Plains-Fanwood Art Association, the Contemporary Art Group and, of course, the Westfield Art Association. With so many like-minded artists in attendance – and so many types of tea and baked goodies to feast upon – it did not take long to decide that we will be repeating this event again next year, and the year after that, and….

Under the guidance of the WAA’s Education Outreach Coordinator, Laura Brown, three board members made thought-provoking, interactive presentations.

Brooke Gardiner, WAA Vice President, Exxon chemist & glass artist, gave us a historical viewpoint on man’s creativity since the dawn of time and how it influenced evolutionary change and growth along with a personal view of his scientific and artistic growth, which is based in experimentation.

Ginny Puskar, WAA board member and acrylic painter, gave us a presentation on artistic influences and an activity that challenged us to find artistic inspiration in randomly-selected phrases and words.

And Laura Brown, art educator and WAA board member, challenged us to an exercise that had us blindly feeling a random object attempting to draw it from feeling alone.

Add to that the marvelous spread of specialty teas, sandwiches, scones, cakes and cookies…

…and great participation from our many attendees…

…and we definitely had a get-together that excited the creative minds and appetites of all who attended. We are already looking forward to next year!

Join us this Sunday for the CreativiTEA Party!

We look forward to seeing you this Sunday as we host a social event with our friends from the Roselle Art Association and the Scotch Plains-Fanwood Art Association. As always, our third Sunday events are 1-4pm in the Community Room of Westfield Town Hall, 425 West Broad Street in Westfield. Ample free parking is always available.


This fun event will feature several short, thought-provoking presentations with accompanying hands-on activities that will spur creative thinking and discussion. Join us for hot tea and delicious treats with your friends – new & old – and expect to leave inspired: this will be the artists’ social event of the season!