Calling All Community Artists

If you have ever found yourself flabbergasted by an unwanted fresco on your child’s bedroom wall, you may be in luck. The Simsbury Junior Women’s Club (SJWC) needs your budding artists now.

Kelly DeVivo and Barbara Kaylor, club members and co-chairs of the October 15 event, are organizing a new artistic tradition for Halloween. They want community artists of all ages and capabilities to paint the walls, or rather the windows, of Simsbury and Avon businesses.

“Many stores are being creative and having a lot of fun with it,” said DeVivo, who is helping to coordinate a magician, clowns, face-painters, balloon sculptors, a fire truck, and a free finger-printing protection program, plus getting the word out about the event.

The Halloween Window Painting Contest and Family Fun Day will be held on Saturday, October 15 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (rain date October 16) at Simsbury Commons and Avon Marketplace Shopping Centers. Store managers will judge the contest and categories will be broken down by age groups.

“Motophoto is lending their photo booth to take photos of friends for free. Chili’s is offering ten percent of their sales that day will go to the junior’s club, if you mention the event while you are eating in the restaurant. Huntington Learning Center will have cookie decorating. Season’s Hallmark will have a coloring contest. And Orvis will be giving away pumpkins to the first 200 painters who visit their store,” DeVivo said, adding many other businesses are participating too.

“There are not many events I can think of where any student can display their creative talents outside of art class. This is a great opportunity for a large portion of the community to see their work. Their names, grades and schools will be posted; it will almost be like a huge outdoor art show,” said DeVivo.

Demonstrating this opportunity for artists, two professional local artists Catherine Elliot and Deborah Leonard, as well as local attorney Lisa Foy, DeVivo and her son, Jameson DeVivo, and the Kaylor family painted eight sample windows at Stop and Shop in Simsbury very early Sunday morning on September 24.

“The stores will definitely benefit from the increased foot traffic,” wrote Kaylor in an email. “Not only will there be hundreds of painters the day of the event, the painters will return throughout the following two weeks to see who received ribbons on their windows.”

Kaylor knows this can be a great success because she grew up with Halloween window painting in her hometown of Rye, NY.

“My parents would come with some folding chairs and sit beside me with some hot chocolate and cheer me on,” Kaylor wrote.

Don’t think you need to paint an entire store window either. Each window will be taped off into 20-inch wide and 30-inch high sections so individual painters and their friends or families will be grouped next to each other. There are 400 window spaces overall and more than 26 stores participating. Registration fee is $15 per painted window and the first 300 painters to register get a free T-shirt.

All the proceeds from the event will benefit local and state wide charities via the Simsbury Junior Women’s Club. The SJWC, which is celebrating 50 years of community service, gives time and energy to numerous service projects that range from public library story times, delivering Meals on Wheels, hosting holiday parties for underprivileged children, to projects for Covenant to Care, Interval House, HARC, ABC House, Simsbury Social Services, and Gifts of Love among others. Recently the Junior Women’s Club has focused on helping the local community with Simsbury’s first annual Luminary Night.

For more information about this event and how to register go to: http://www.simsburyjuniors.org/events/windowpainting.html. Also, volunteers are needed for the day of the event. Please contact BarbaraKaylor@remax.net if you are interested.