The Greater Fall River Art Association celebrated its 65th Anniversary Gala on September 24, 2022. The event highlighted the association's rich history, from its founding in 1957 by committed citizens to its acquisition of its current building in 1968 for $8,000. Speakers detailed the building's history, originally built in 1904 for Charles Mariner Cole and his artist wife, Nellie Mae Cole, and mentioned a visit from their great-grandson, Bruce Black. The association showcased its ongoing commitment to arts programming, including classes for children and adults, monthly gallery shows, and upcoming events such as a November gallery takeover by resident artists, a poetry slam, a Christmas party, and a Veterans Day breakfast on November 11th.
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hi I just want to um take a minute and just say welcome to the greater Fall River Art Association thank you so very much for coming to help us celebrate 65 years here in the city it has been our honor to be part of of the city of Fall River for all these years it has also been um the history of this of this organization we started in 1957. we started as a group of committed
0:30citizens who really wanted to bring Arts to this city and it was brought with a lot of of some of the big names here like the buffingtons the McLean's the chases all of them they were part of the original group of people here Louise Doyle was one of our presidents Ed McGarvey was one of our board members so this building holds a lot of history for this Association we got this building in 1968.
1:01and um I'll tell you we paid eight thousand dollars for it um it was purchased um from a doctor um who bought it from uh the fan the descendants of the original um Charles Mariner Cole Family Charles mayor Nicole um was a merchant Seaman a salvaged Seaman here in the bay part of his job was to keep Mount Hope Bay open and the Salvage off the rocks he married Nellie Mae Cole and they um
1:33they moved here she was from Maine and he was from Canada he started in Canada so he came here and they um settled here he bought this beautiful home had it built for him specifications it um it was built in 1904 it had a Widow's walk which is going to come back thank you Mr Mayor and um there's a whole bunch of of work that's going to be done on this beautiful home
2:03to return it to what it was Nellie maycole was an artist of course she was so why do we not have her house some of her artwork is in the second floor bathroom we also have some of her artwork in one of the studios that is not open tonight she painted the surrounds around some of the fireplaces um she was quite prolific they had one child um a daughter Mabel when Mabel got
2:29married there's an invitation on our piano inviting the public to her wedding she married um and moved up to Valentine Street they had one child and then that family moved up to Woburn and I happened to be honored to meet Charles Black who is the great grandson of Charles Mariner Cole excuse me Bruce black who was a great grandson of Charles Mariner Cole he came to visit following a renovation that we had done
3:02here in the building we were renovating that this this Gallery over here and um Ron uh was digging around uh trying to fix the baseboards and there was a whole bunch of single or double-edged razor blades that we pulled out about a hundred of them we pulled them out and we made a pile of them and I kind of posted a little snarky post on our Facebook page you never know what you're gonna what's
3:27gonna what you're gonna find when you do a renovation and lo and behold Bruce black responded said if you are still at 80 Belmont Street that's my great-grandparents so I have all the history of the of the Charles Cole family here in this building now and it's amazing they are a they were a wonderful family they were also related to the mcleans and the Hargraves so there's some big names in the city that
3:49this man was related to he's also related to the Cole family over in to wisset and the coal river is named after parts of his family Bruce can trace his lineage back to the Mayflower too so he's been around in the United States for a long time he will probably come back to visit again next year as we speak right now he's enjoying some uzo over in Greece for a um
4:13uh postponed vacation shall we say so he and the wife are over there as far as the organization we started like I said in 1957 our first show was at the Carroll School and we had 10 000 people come through that show ten thousand people that's a lot of people and then they had their second show that same year it was over at the Universalist Unitarian Church and they had another 10 000 people come
4:40through that show and then finally they did one last show that year over at the Garden Club and they probably had 15 000 because it was a holiday show so they made the commitment um to keep Arts coming into the city and we as an organization in the year 2022 are doing the same thing we continue to offer Arts programming in for the city and we have art classes for the kids we
5:08have art classes for adults we always have a show here in the gallery and it changes every month this show happens to be hanging for two months but for the most part we do a different show every single month and we enjoy doing these things we showcase artists who some are very famous um Ron Kaplan here has been involved with this organization the gentleman who's done these drugs he's been
5:31involved with this organization probably 40 years and he just continues to help us to support this Joan lahome whose work is hanging on the walls as well Leo is still on our board but she supported this organization probably 30 years so there are people that have been involved with this organization for quite a long time I am grateful to them I am grateful to every member that of
5:53the board that is here today we have a number of our artists and residents here and some of our new Artisan residents are here as well I am so grateful for all of the volunteers who put this together tonight um we are this this organization does not run without volunteers they are truly the backbone of of every Arts organization um from from not only from the event planning to maintaining this beautiful
6:18house I am grateful grateful beyond belief and it is my great joy to welcome all of you to the home of the greater Fall River Art Association and I thank you so much for coming to celebrate with us tonight the house is open for anyone who wants a tour I can tell you a little bit about the rooms and things like that in the grand staircase Gallery it's our works progress gather we are honored to have
6:4340 pieces of works progress art hanging in this guy Gallery with the permission of the Smithsonian Institution so we are honored to be able to have that as part of our our history here and um we have artists in Residence Studios open you're welcome to take a look at the art that's in there and some of the artists whose studios are open are here tonight and we have art on three floors
7:08going up and one floor going down to the basement so there's lots of art to be had here and there's lots of art to be to be found in this building and we welcome you November will bring the Artisan residents are going to take over this Gallery so you'll want to come and see that we will have our beginning opening the first weekend in November we'll also be doing a poetry slam so if
7:30you are a poet and would like to participate we would welcome you to participate on that we are also doing some events for Christmas we're having a Christmas artsy party here looking forward to that doing all kinds of art programming with the kids in the city we're also doing some veterans work November 11th we have a breakfast for our veterans here in in the building so you can so our vets can come and enjoy
7:53free breakfast and just hang out with some of us crazy art types and we are honored to be able to to do all those kinds of things next year's programming we are only just beginning so year 66 watch out this when the Art Association is really going to take off so thank you all very much I really appreciate all of you coming buy raffle tickets bid on the art in the other room
8:22so I want to thank everyone for coming out tonight I would do this from head but I'm not going to remember everything I want to say so I wrote it down but everybody coming for celebrating the anniversary here 65th at the greater forever Art Association I really do appreciate the support anyone who I haven't had the pleasure to meet already my name is Abel and I'm a resident artist here at the association and also
8:44an events coordinator I personally want to thank everyone who has come together to help make this Gala happen from everyone who has just bought a ticket to come it worked behind the scenes anything that you have done to make this night what it is right now I want to thank Stephanie Walker for everything she has done out in the community to help receive donations to help fund this event
9:08we did have a wonderful order that came through as a donation from Dogwood market so we greatly appreciate that I also want to thank Ocean State Job Lot for donations that we received from them as well and thank my soul sister Lisa tenza for making that happen with me I also want to give a thank you to Denzel Anderson for his contributions and the support from me through making this happen
9:34uh Wendy Tanner I have so many thanks for you for not only getting the donations from m s Liquors which most of us probably people know is the flat iron because I didn't know what m s was I knew it as a flying um I also want to thank you for everything that you've done not only for tonight but from the beginning of my journey into art if it wasn't for you and your support
9:58and the courage that you've given me to pursue my goals I may not be standing here right now speaking in this beautiful house with amazing people that I've met for me tonight it had to be perfect I refuse to accept any less for tonight I wanted everyone who walked through these doors to see exactly what this association means to not only me but to other people out in the community
10:20we have some fabulous things that are going to be happening here at the greater Florida Association bringing ought to not only just children but adults as well many events are planned for the throughout the rest of the year as well as already ideas going through our heads for 2023. I love being a part of everything that goes on here and it's a wonderful atmosphere and I couldn't be happier being anywhere else
10:45for that I have Dana bonds to think as I show most of you know Dana is the president of the association she's not only my mentor but she's a great friend I see her ideas and her plans for this Association and the greatness that she's already achieved and many many things that she'll achieve in the future I see every day the time the strength and the commitment that she puts towards the great affordable Association
11:13she is dedicated to Bringing art to everyone to show the community different forms of artwork she personally taught me that art is not just a brush to a canvas and art is inside of you and you have to express yourself in your artwork so I thank you for that for me being myself Dana I want to thank you for showing me that special thing in my life and for putting every breath that you have into
11:40this Association I am so proud to be a part of the greater Fall River Art Association and I'm honored to be a part of your life and I want to thank you
11:55as well
12:03I do not like speaking in front of people however this was absolutely necessary one year ago this week I met an amazing woman Dana Barnes I was at a meeting I wanted to do something special for the kids I'm a rock painter I want to rock paint with the kids however Dana gave me something even more she brought me into this organization she believed in me and she made me realize that I could do so
12:27much more than rock painting I now teach students I do events for the Art Association Dana is the backbone of this Art Association if not for Dana this place may not be here when I was a child growing up in Fall River I never knew of this is Art Association and now I consider it my second home I have one other person to thank that is April along my rock journey I ran into this
12:51wonderful woman named April she became my soul mate as a friend I could never get through what I've gotten through without her she has been my rock as well as Dana has if not for both of them I don't know where I would be but when it comes to this Art Association I wanted to say thank you for all of you for being here to the board members who put their time and effort into this place
13:14like no other and to everybody else who just comes and visits it's just a beautiful place to be and for me it's magical somebody else said that the other day while he was doing a guitar soloist Peter Jansen correct yes he said it was magical and that's how I feel when I'm here but I just wanted to come up here and say that out of this whole organization it is my home and if it was
13:37not for Dana bonds I would have never had that opportunity nobody else in this city gave me that Dana did the first day she met me it wasn't even five minutes into meeting her and she was all ready to take me on and do what my dreams were and she gave me the chance to have my dream and April came along with me and now we do some amazing things here so I
13:57just wanted to say thank you to everybody from for coming here and please do me a favor bring your kids here for art classes send send everybody here for art classes come visit all our events be a community together with us bring people in we'll come see you at your events I'm the event lady I go different events just not rock painting anymore I do other stuff but anyway I just wanted to
14:24get up here and say thank you and John you're not forgotten either but you know I I love being here and to our new Resident artist thank you for being here Mr Ebbs that's right but thank you everybody for being here and like I said if not for Dana I would not even be here so please spread the word about this wonderful Hidden Gem that even I at 47 years old did not know
14:49about until I met Dana that's all