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Due to health and safety regulations related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pittsburg semi-annual Artwalk moved online.
The virtual Artwalk was held Oct. 2, 2020 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. and was streamed on Facebook Live. The broadcast featured a variety of artistic presentations, including interviews with local artists, instructional videos on how to draw and assemble specific projects, musical performances and dance recitals. The video remains online at the Pittsburg Artwalk Facebook page for future viewing.
“The Pittsburg Artwalk Association and its members have determined that the show must go on,” members of the Artwalk Committee said in a press release. “… The safety of our participants and our community is our number one priority and we felt like this (moving virtual) was the best way to do that as well as continue with our mission to showcase our talented local artists… Thank you again for your continued support in our event…”
The Artwalk Association is made up of a handful of Pittsburg citizens ranging from local business owners to musicians, clay artists and sculptors to photographers, as well as general art lovers like Artwalk Association president Jennifer de Lee.
“There’s a lot more planning involved in a virtual Artwalk,” de Lee said told 4-States Home Page. “This time around I think we’re seeing artists in different way because we’ve done interviews and when you do that, artists start to talk about how they do things overall… During an in-person Artwalk, it’s so busy, people are walking around, it’s hard to get that one-on-one with an artist… so this time around I think we’re really just focusing more on individual artists and how they do their work.”
In the virtual video, the artists each received a five-minute slot to present an equivalent demonstration to what they would do if the Artwalk were in-person. In previous Artwalks, a large section of Broadway would be blocked off, and vendors and artists would set up tents to provide food and artistic showcases to residents of Pittsburg. The event is held semi-annually in April and October.
“… It’s really great to get this one-on-one conversation with the artists… to find out what their drive is..,” said Christa Cunningham, vice president of the Artwalk Association. “It’s inspiring for other artists and maybe even those artists that haven’t quite proclaimed that they’re artists yet to see where those people got started and hopefully inspire them to take that leap of faith to showcase themselves and to call themselves an artist as well, and hopefully that motivates them to create art, and then it’s just a wonderful continuation of art for our future and so on.”
According to the Artwalk Association website, their purpose is “to inspire, promote, and attract fine art in all forms.”
“As a community, it is important to support local artists because, without local citizen support, the art they make would cease to make the impact it could make,” the website says. “When you support the local artist community, you are supporting all of our respective creative freedom.”