PENN HILLS ARTS AND MUSIC FESTIVAL
CELEBRATES 30 YEARS!
From a small summer show to a juried event, the arts celebration has grown into a local tradition.
For the Penn Hills Arts and Music Festival, this year marks three decades of providing art to a community that’ s clamoring for it. And, with this year being an anniversary year, the festival is pulling out all the stops for the community.
“ We’ ll be at the library again, which is nice because the festival always falls on the hottest time of the year,” said Catherine Meara, festival president.“ We have the 11 artisans from last year all coming back. We’ ll have music, some animals from the wildlife center and food. We’ re going the extra mile this year to make it stand out.”
Meara added that the organization will also feature the BOB Project this year, and a special veterans area showcasing veteran artists’ work.
The BOB Project serves the needs of community development and veterans in western Pennsylvania. Currently, it is designing tiny homes with OBA Design & EcoCraft for a tiny home community in Penn Hills that will house veterans. In addition to that work, the BOB Project has installed gardens around the Penn Hills community and at the Penn Hills high school, middle school and elementary school, painted a mural at Butler Gas on Coal Hollow designed by high school students, and spent Thanksgiving and Christmas cooking dinners for more than 100 veterans at Veterans Place. Meara and her mother, Dolores, help with the cooking each year.“ When you help others, it helps you to help yourself,” she says of the yearly events.
“ We do all this for the Penn Hills community. Penn Hills needs things like this. It needs a little bit of a lift, and if we can help provide that, then that’ s wonderful because we love this community,” Meara notes.“ We had more than 800 people come
for the festival last year and we’ re hoping that number grows again this year.”
She added that last year’ s festival included 144 entries for the judged exhibition and this year promises to showcase just as many works. Gordon Gary, Don Aliquo and Paul Thompson will be providing the jazz music that festivalgoers are accustomed to, and the high school band will be returning again to provide the food( the proceeds of which will fund their own endeavors). There will be 30 prizes awarded to winning artists at 1 p. m. on Saturday.
Penn Hills needs things like this. It needs a little bit of a lift and if we can help provide that, then that’ s wonderful because we love this community.
With two years in as president, Meara is enjoying her time on the Penn Hills Arts Council, where she started out as the publicity chair. The other members working alongside her include Gina Lamia, Nick Lamia, and Marlene Mylo.
For information on how to get more involved with the Penn Hills Arts Council, or questions about the BOB Project for residents and organizations looking to get involved, visit the council’ s Facebook page.
The Penn Hills Arts and Music Festival will take place on July 20 from 3 to 8:30 p. m. and July 21 from 1 to 8:30 p. m. at the Penn Hills Library, 1037 Stotler Road, 15235. The Wildlife Center will be on-site for two hours on Friday for a presentation, and it is hoped there will be therapy dogs on Saturday. n
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