WEST ORANGE, NJ — The West Orange Arts Council’s annual Holiday Boutique will be open for business on Saturday, Dec. 2, and Sunday, Dec. 3, with vendors filling the West Orange Arts Center on Valley Road. Residents will be able to get a jump on their holiday shopping, while also getting a chance to browse the WOAC Small Works show that has been on display since Oct. 21.
“It’s a vendor sale; we want to make sure that there’s a little bit of something for everyone,” WOAC Chairwoman Patricia Mitrano told the West Orange Chronicle in a phone interview on Nov. 24. “We’ve been doing it for a few years, and now that we have the perfect location down in the valley, it works. We also might have two students from West Orange (as vendors) and we’re happy about that because we’ve wanted to work with the schools. When the young folks get involved it affects another generation.”
The sale will feature local artists, including: Carol Black-Lemon, Jan Carden, Aaliyah Kamalei, Elissa Merkl, Amelia Panico, Ann Vollum and Charlotte Wescott. Hand-crafted jewelry and cards, candles, clothes, skin products and original art will be available for purchase. The goal, Mitrano said, is to get as many local artists involved as possible.
“The goal this year was to really push to get more people involved in this,” Mitrano said. “This is a community resource. We wanted to hear from the community and see what they wanted to do. The fact that we have so many local artists is good. It is winter, but we don’t stop.”
The art show has been on display since the end of October, and will still be hanging on the walls of the arts center at the holiday boutique. The show features smaller works, and allows for more artists to be featured.
“It allows a broader range of artists to be part of it,” Mitrano said. “We got to accept a lot more variety. The work is smaller, so the goal is to make it more reasonable for people who want to start collecting art. There’s between 50 and 60 artists represented.”
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