Mark your calendars because a Monster Crafts & Fine Art Festival is coming to town! Merchantville’s Business District and town residents, SJ Festivals is excited to bring a two-day juried Crafts and Fine Art Festival to this charming town as it transforms itself during the month of October from Merchantville into Monsterville!  Ensuring its success, the 1st Annual Merchantville Monster Crafts & Fine Art Festival, to be held on October 15 & 16, 2022, will be the highlight of ghoulishly fun activities that Merchantville is known for throughout the month. Located along Centre and Chestnut Streets will be juried craft and fine artists offering wearable art, display and functional pottery, blown and stained glass, fine and fashion jewelry, garden and home decor, soaps, scents, pet gifts plus…captivating fine art in watercolor, pastel, oil, collage, and decorative fine photography. Enjoy live, gentle music, family art activities and delicious and varied al fresco dining. Support of a charitable cause sets the Festival apart and our generous artists donate a piece of work to the charity’s raffle tent and all proceeds from the two days of the raffle benefit the charity’s worthy mission. Visit this website for continued updates, www.merchmcfaf.com. For more information about the 2022 Merchantville Festival email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call: 856-816-7268.

Eilandarts Center is offering week-long, themed art camps provide children with a range of classes and themes to fit any artistic interest. Students are encouraged to imagine and explore creatively, while making their own artistic masterpieces. Each week children will have the opportunity to learn a new craft. July 5-8 enjoy learning Papermaking and Sculpting, Painting and Mixed Media​ or Stop Motion Creations. July 11-15 try your hand at ​​ArtSplosions! Art + Science​​, Love to Sew!, Combining & Creating or Animals and Art. And, July 18-22 Art Explorations, Band Camp, Nature & Art Proijects or Fantasy Sculpture & Problem Solving. COVID: Our classes are held in the big room at Eilandarts Center where we can spread out and create art in a save way. Limited spots for all classes to keep them small. Masks are not required, but feel free to wear it. Please register to save your spot.

Opening reception of the new show ’Closer Look‘ is this Friday, November 12th from 6:00-9:00 p.m. at Eilandarts Center, 10 East Chestnut Avenue. This show runs through the month and will feature art by four women, exhibiting four completely different ways of artistic expressions. Fiona Bearclaw, a talented embroiderer and artist who also creates prints from linocuts. Kate Cipriani, a south Jersey artist who works in dry and soft pastels and sells original pastel paintings, select prints, and greeting cards. Beth Fisher, of Gypsy Fish Studios, a mixed media artist inspired by nature, history and the magic that surrounds it.  And, Kerry Mentzer, an artist with varied interests - painting, photography, piano and the mosaic technique picassiette. Join us next month at 5:00 p.m. on December 10th for the Merchantville Holiday Market.

Spread the word! The Merchantville Holiday Market will take place on Friday, December 10th 5-9 p.m. and Saturday, December 11th 11 a.m.-5 p.m. in downtown Merchantville and in the Station! This year Eilandarts is partnering up with the town wide Holiday Market. You can sign up for an inside table at Eilandarts Center (one 6 ft table space) or a 10x10 tent space outside. The Merchantville Holiday Market is a fine craft show featuring artists of many types, presented in the The Station and downtown Merchantville. Application for Artisans: http://www.eilandarts.com/events.html. Applications are due Tuesday, October, 26th.

The Macaroni Kid shared some information about Philadelphia museums offering nurses and hospital workers FREE admission to honor them and their work for National Hospital Week. The Academy of Natural Sciences invites hospital workers and up to 3 guests free admission to the museum. The Franklin Insitute invites hospital workers and up to 3 guests free admission to the museum. The Barnes Foundation will be open exclusively for hospital workers on Thursday, May 13, 12:00-7:00 p.m. The Philadelphia Museum of Art and Rodin Museum is offering free general admission for hospital worker plus four guests from May 14-May 17. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts has free general admission for hospital workers and their guests. 

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Attention Merchantville Friends and Neighbors! We have an update for Music Fest 2020. Regrettably, due to the impact and restrictions COVID-19 has had on live events and gatherings, we will be holding this fall's Music Festival 100% virtually on our FaceBook and Instagram pages. We will be live-streaming the best local bands and highlighting all that the great town of Merchantville has to offer. We will also have changed the date to Saturday, October 17th, 2020. Be sure to stay tuned right here for more updates as we post them. Thanks!