There have been many changes at the Triton Museum of Art this year. Not only has the community-based art museum started its popular Coffee with the Curator series, but on April 17 it began a new event, Night @tritonmuseum.
Night @tritonmuseum was a concept developed by the Triton’s preparator, Bryan Callanta, who wanted to create a fun, community event combining live art and poetry.
“I wanted to show that museums aren’t untouchable,” said Callanta. “You can actually go and interact and do something with the artists. I thought I could bring in a bunch of young artists that haven’t really emerged yet as well and bring in the exhibiting artists that we had to kind of bridge the gap a little between made it and haven’t made it yet.”
Callanta’s idea was to have artists demonstrate their skills and style while talking about their art to event guests. He also wanted to incorporate poetry into the event as the museum recently acquired the painting that Allen Ginsberg read the complete version of his epic poem, Howl, in front of for the first time.
“What I tried to do was create a few community art tables,” said Callanta. “I created a still life table that anyone could come up and draw anything they wanted as well as having [artist] Jojo [Perea] do an interactive live demo where you could actually do his art next to him and with him.”
Although both the museum and Callanta had no idea how the turnout would be, everyone was pleasantly surprised as over 250 people attended. The feedback has also been fantastic.
“They [Triton’s board of directors] wanted a date for the next one almost immediately,” said Callanta. “I came in Friday to clean up and all anyone had to do was walk into the room and they would talk about it. It was great.”
While Callanta had the initial idea and did most of the organization for Night @tritonmusuem, he’s quick to give the credit to everyone else. “The credit really goes to the artists who came in and did something,” he said. “I only gave them the venue.”
Perea, Vanessa Callanta, Mei-Ying Dell’Aquila, Ashleigh Strictland, Oscar Knutsson, Elizabeth Jimenez Montelongo, Michael Foley, LAuruS Myth and Olympia Maxechs, as well as Beverly Rainer and Katherine Meyer who recently exhibited at the Triton, participated in the event.
The next Night @tritonmuseum will be Thursday, July 17. Visit www.tritonmuseum.org for information.
