Teacher creates website to help young artists

GLEN RIDGE, NJ — A Glen Ridge High School art teacher, and a former student of hers, have created a Facebook page dedicated to Glen Ridge artists. The goal of the website — GRArtConnect — is to bring together a pool of artists, at various stages of their careers or studies, in order for them to promote their art, find opportunities, or offer a helping hand. The artists the website hopes to attract would be in theater, music, visual design and the fine arts. The GRHS art teacher who began this, Anne Malone, said students ask her about jobs and internships, but this type of information does not come her way often enough.

“I thought last spring to set up a link between students and job opportunities,” she said earlier this week at the school. “I’m trying to establish a connection between people working and students when jobs come up.”

She said a social media opportunity like Linkedin is not for students, it is for people already established. “But students need to get to that point,” she said.

She cited as an example one offer from one member of the new website. This person offered an opportunity for a student to see the technical work that goes into a Cirque du Soleil production.

“For a student that wants to be part of a crew, this is an opportunity to get backstage and speak to someone,” she said.
The seed of her idea received a watering in the fall when Interim Principal Tim Liddy sent Malone a job opportunity that had come his way. It was a job opportunity at the South Street Seaport Museum, in New York.
“This is exactly what I wanted,” she said. “I forwarded it to people I knew in the arts, parents and a few former students”
Malone received several replies. One was from Jodi Badagliacca, whose daughter, Andrea, a former student of Malone, wanted to help create the webpage.

“I met Andrea in December,” Malone said. “We talked about ways to get this developed.”
They decided to set up a Facebook page but also to alert Glen Ridge residents, with a letter of intent, through regular mail.
“You have to think about different ways of connecting with people and being part of a group,” she said of the website.

The page was set up this month. Malone, who has two children as well as a busy teacher’s schedule, said activity to get the webpage established has come in waves. There are already 54 members on the page. It is hoped members will bring in new ones. Malone would like 250 members within the year.

She said this is just a number she pulled out of her hat. But she said it was a reasonable number because of all the Glen Ridge residents working in the arts.

To be a member, the person has to provide Malone with certain information, such as, in what art do you work; is it full-time or a hobby; if you work professional in the arts, would you be able to provide job or internship opportunity information?
“I had one request to be on the page,” she said. “I didn’t know him. I asked if anyone did. I have to do a Google search. If he’s not from Glen Ridge or an artist, I don’t have to accept his request.”

The artists already accepted for GRArtConnect include Dan Walker, the lighting designer for Cirque du Soleil; Jason Didner, a musician with the Jungle Jim Band, a band that plays children’s music; Steve Pullara, a Grammy winner for children’s music, who was brought into the page by Didner; Theresa DeSalvio, a Glen Ridge painter; Wendy Letven, a teacher at Parson’s School of Design; and Walter Oliver, a photographer.

Malone said she is being assisted by Lou Mercurio, of the Glen Ridge Arts Patrons Association, or GRAPA. She said the association informed her that so long as the page remains non-profit, it will provide funding to GRArtConnect.
“Right now, nothing is costing us except stamps,” Malone said.

About half the people using the web page are professionals working in the arts. To Malone, this is crucial with summer coming up and art students looking for a chance for job or internship. To find employment opportunities on the website, Malone said a member needs a password to view the listings.

“When I went to school, I wasn’t guided,” she said. “That’s not true so much today. If I can do something to help someone else, let me do it. This came from the heart, to do something beyond teaching.”