New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
The Urban Sketchers movement comes to downtown New Bedford on Thursday, May 14, 2015 when New Bedford Open Studios hosts an Urban Sketch in Custom House Square Park from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. as part of that evening’s AHA! New Bedford night.
Led by Huguette May of Hatch Street Studios, a member building of New Bedford Open Studios, sketchers will bring their materials and meet at 5:30 p.m. at the corner of Acushnet Avenue and William Street. Then fan out over the grassy knolls or settle on a bench in Custom House Square Park for the next two hours and visualize the natural and man-made landscape. From 7:30 – 8:00 p.m., the artists can share and photograph their work for posting to New Bedford Open Studios social media platforms, if they wish.
All area sketchers are invited to participate; the event is free and open to all artists. To foster a sense of community among urban sketchers, New Bedford Open Studios has launched a Meetup page with this event that you can find here: Meetup.com/NewBedfordOpenStudios. Artists can RSVP to the sketch through the Meetup page or simply show up at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 14 with their sketch tools.
Huguette explains that “Urban Sketchers (USk) is a global community of artists that practice drawing on location in cities, towns and villages they live in or travel to. The Urban Sketchers movement was started on Flickr in 2007 by journalist Gabriel Campanario.” In 2009, Urban Sketchers became a nonprofit organization 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt. “Urban Sketchers is all about sharing an experience of drawing on location with otherwise often isolated artists who want to practice drawing outside of their studios or workplace,” May says.
This past winter, she took part in several Urban Sketcher Meetups including one at the Boston Library and, as a member of the New Bedford Open Studios steering committee for 2015, thought it high time to bring Urban Sketchers to New Bedford.
New Bedford Open Studios is the umbrella organization for over 75 professional artists. Most of its members have studios in the former mills and factories scattered throughout the City of New Bedford. Once a year, they throw open the doors to these studios and galleries and invite the public and art collectors inside. This year, the 11th annual New Bedford Open Studios tour of member buildings will take place on three consecutive weekends throughout the month of November. You can log on to NewBedfordOpenStudios.org for more information and also follow news and events at Facebook.com/NewBedfordOpenStudios.
