She Has a Talent for Choosing Talent
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Published on Saturday, 07 March 2009 18:05
The booths and tables that will ring the town center during the Festival of the Arts will feature a variety of artists. Two photographers, four potters, four watercolorists and four painters in acrylic will be part of the mix, along with a couple of artists who work with glass and another who makes mosaic tables. What will have brought them together is the exhibit-planning expertise of Marianne Megela, arts events coordinator for the Von Liebig Art Center in Naples
Ms. Megela's connection with the annual Ave Maria event began last year when Bunnie Erber, co-chair of the Festival, introduced herself to Marianne at Art in the Park in Cambier Park and asked for advice about the Festival. "Marianne graciously offered to share her expertise with us," explains Moira Fennessey, Festival co-chair (right, with Ms. Megela). "Since then, she's been responsive to our every question, and has made herself available to accommodate our needs."
The artists Ms. Megela eventually gathered together for Ave Maria's Festival belong either to The Naples Art Association or The Naples Art Crafters. As members of those organizations, they have all been through the jurying process, where the proficiency of their work has been evaluated by a panel of experts.
Ms. Megela went into this kind of work ten years ago, in large part to help her husband Jack Megela, a fine arts photographer and a participant in this year's Festival, and has worked in the field ever since. "I just finished my big project," she says, "the Naples Art Festival," which was held on on February 21 and 22nd in Naples' Cambier Park, featuring 300 artists and drawing 25,000 people.
She sees projects like Ave Maria's Festival of the Arts as a positive step against the trend to give art a back seat in a downward economy. She believes firmly in the Festival's purpose - funding art programs for university students. "I hope we don't continue to lose art," she says, citing the cuts in art programs that schools tend to make in difficult economic times.
Moira Fennessey says the Festival committee has come to rely on Marianne's formidable organizational skills as they plan what may well be the town's biggest event of the year. "We consider Marianne a jewel," she says.
