Month: May 2011

Thanks to our Members and Friends

Gloucester is a Top 25 Arts Destination!

Photo of our winning city by Joey Ciaramitaro of Good Morning Gloucester

Dear seARTS members and friends,

This great news would have not been possible without you. The Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (seARTS) is pleased to announce that Gloucester has been named as a "Top 25 Small City" on its list of top arts destinations across the United States. Small cities are identified as having populations under 100,000 and the nomination for this category was submitted for Gloucester with the intent of highlighting all of Cape Ann in the coverage of the area. seARTS Board Member-elect Kristine Fisher led the campaign with the seARTS Board and art community to get Gloucester on the ballot and then to rally the community and American Style readers to vote! In her September 2010 letter to the editor, Kristine sums it up this way: "One of our goals at seARTs is to raise the level of awareness with the American public about the richness of our very creative community."

Gloucester was voted in #3 just behind Asheville, North Carolina and Santa Fe, New Mexico and was specifically mentioned as an "up and comer."

AmericanStyle mentioned Rocky Neck Art Colony among Gloucester’s main attractions

"Nights on the Neck" was also praised by AmericanStyle

Also noted were the Cape Ann Artisans Tour, the Waterfront Festival and the transformation of the Blackburn Theatre into The Cape Ann Theatre. Congratulations to everyone mentioned, and we’re sure this publicity will be beneficial to you all.

American Style focuses on Art, Craft, Travel and Interior Design and is an excellent resource for artists and art enthusiasts as it publishes the top art events across the country, highlighting select destinations and profiling individual artists.  The idea to pursue this campaign came out of a seARTS strategic planning initiative to look at how great art communities get noticed throughout the country.  "This honor goes a long way toward endorsing the path we are on to support and promote Cape Ann as a beautiful and welcoming place to enjoy the arts — American Style is focused on visual arts, but we are committed to continue to look for and respond to all such opportunities to support all genres of arts and culture on Cape Ann," says seARTS spokesperson, Jacqueline Ganim-DeFalco.  "We hope all the arts and cultural groups and artists will benefit from this coverage and leverage this honored place among other great art communities."

seARTS would like to extend special thanks to all our members and friends whose votes helped make this possible.

And a very special thank you to Joey Ciaramitaro of Good Morning Gloucester for his website posts, his video that got so many people interested in voting, and for lending us his beautiful above photo for the campaign. Many thanks also to seARTS Board Member-Elect Kristine Fisher for her initiative and hard work on this campaign.

Click here for the AmericanStyle Magazine article.