The first rule of Art Club is you’re already in Art Club, even if you didn’t know it – or know what it is, or that it even existed.
“We’ve had this mantra since year one, where the best part of Art Club is that you’re already a member,” said Don Swenson, one of the Hammonton-based artists who helped start the club a few years ago.
Swenson said the idea for the club started to take shape when he was between jobs and had noticed that there seemed to be a lot of artists around Hammonton in one capacity or another, but said he felt there wasn’t any mechanism in place for connecting as an arts community.
He got together with some friends including Sue Moerder at the tattoo parlor and art gallery she owned in town at the time to discuss the possibility of getting something going.
“About 13 or 14 of us showed up at her studio on March 1 and tried to create this sort of social club for artists in town,” Swenson said. “Then about nine days later, everybody was in quarantine.”
The March 1 he mentioned, of course, was in 2020, and the timing of the pandemic threatened to stop their idea before it could really start.
But in that short period between exploring the idea for some kind of arts network and the world shutting down, Swenson said he had a meeting with the folks at Main Street Hammonton about possibly partnering in some way. At that meeting, he said, different groups were divvying up upcoming dates for upcoming “Third Thursday” events to be held throughout the year.
Despite not really existing yet, the nascent art group was assigned the following month. The April Third Thursday event was to be theirs to do.with what they’d like. But as mentioned above, the world was about to shut down.
The March Third Thursday event was cancelled, since, well, the world had begun shutting down by about the second Thursday.
But Swenson said they didn’t want to stop their momentum, and if anything, the growing pandemic made the kind of artistic camaraderie they had in mind even more important to continue.
So they took the show online and started a live stream.
“I started thinking, ‘well maybe if people can’t come out to celebrate the arts, maybe we can bring the arts to them,’” he said.
The group organized several artists to all stream live remotely from their studios to interact with their community viewing remotely. Swenson said that first show received more than 1,000 views and they knew they were on to something.
“It wound up just keeping that connection to the arts alive,” he said.
Swenson said that once things started to open up and people started going out again, they began doing in person events as well, but said they continued also doing the online broadcasts up until about a year and a half ago.
Since its founding, the Hammonton Art Club has continued to grow in its size and scope, hosting events and programs large and small all over Hammonton.
Up next for the group is their upcoming fall festival Hamm-O-Ween.
After the success of their Hammonton Arts and Music Fest in the spring, the idea was floated to put on another show in the fall.
Billed as a “night of artistic mischief,” Hamm-O-Ween will take place on Horton Street in Hammonton, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Sat., Oct. 4.
The event will feature live performances, interactive art installations, a vendor night market, a beer garden, a costume contest and more.
Swenson said the Halloween-themed event is geared more towards an adult crowd, though he said it will be “family-safe,” with nothing too scary or risque planned for the night.
Swenson said the anticipation for the show is growing steadily.
“The response for this event has been insane,” Swenson said. “People are just overjoyed to have something like this.”
Since their founding, they’ve been operating as an extension of Main Street Hammonton, Swenson said, and without a physical headquarters.
Both of those things may be changing soon.
“I think we’re close to needing a home,” he said.
Swenson said the group is getting to the point where they have so many events and programs going on at all times, that trying to find spaces to do everything is getting too cumbersome.
“That’s sort of got us focused on what our endgame is, and that’s really to develop a community arts center in the area, which houses not only the fine arts, like drawing and painting and sculpture, but also the performing arts,” he said. “Maybe we could even have a small film studio – something that gets all of the arts under one roof so we can share ideas and community.
“The more we grow, the more we continue to offer artistic avenues for people to express themselves artistically, the more we’re strengthening our connection with the community. I think it’s just going to be like an explosion – this hub for creativity right here in South Jersey.”
For more information Art Club, Hamm-O-Ween or their many other events and programs, visit www.facebook.com/artclubhammonton.