Making Progress on Lighting

Joe Harvard
Jul 9, 2017
2 min read

We had a lovely night at the gARTen @ 713 Cookman tonight, testing a new 18-LED black light rack unit, three purple fill spotlights, and a pair of 16-foot LED tape lights -- our first attempt at a permanent, portable black lighting setup. Unfortunately, before we could begin taking photos of the experiment the sky opened up, and I only just managed to snap a few pics of the purple fill lights, along with one shot of the Well Known Fence that Mal took earlier on, before the rain started.

Outside of the rain, it was a great night. As usual gARTen godmother Jenn Hampton guided lots of lovely art lovers from our big sister, Parlor Gallery, our way, and stole some moments from the gallery to help us plot our improvements. Their current show is super cool, by the way. A fun itinerary is to have dinner at a Cookman eatery, then go to a real gallery -- like Parlor and art629 --as a main art course, then have ice cream for dessert at Cookman Creamery, then come to the gARTen as a dessert dessert.

After some work on the lights and the gARTen Bridge, Curator Joe Harvard played a set of solo guitar, while the gARTen's Event Curator, Mallory Massara, hosted dozens of visitors on walk-through's and handed out the hand-held black lights once darkness fell. Just as at our holiday show at Asbury Park's art629 Gallery this past January, once the black lights went on people were drawn in, as if magnetically, from off of the street. In the words of NJTV News' Mary Alice Williams in her May, 2017 Garden State Express story, folks love to "watch the gARTen glow!"

Below: Mal's shot of the new 18-LED rack light on the Well Known Fence. Consensus is that these club lights will be perfect for the gARTen, once we can get some waterproof, plexiglass-windowed boxes to place them in. Game on!