Community Arts Council of Sugarcreek celebrates at TCCA

Every year for the past many years, the Community Arts Council of Sugarcreek has hosted an annual Christmas banquet for its members. Last year saw the venue change, moving instead to an evening of art, music and light refreshments at the Tuscarawas County Center for the Arts in New Philadelphia.

This year’s event took place Tuesday, Oct. 18, and council members and friends and family of the arts council commissioned artwork winner Lexus Troyer gathered to explore the professional paintings and the current exhibit of high school art projects.

President Scott Gerber said the Christmas banquet was a heralded and highly anticipated time, but it was a great deal of work. He said it was becoming more to get everything prepared for the event due to its proximity to the holidays and people’s busy schedules, so they changed gears and decided to move the event into the fall, as well as move the venue to a new location.

“We picked the Tuscarawas County Center for the Arts venue, and Executive Director Jeannine Kennedy has done an incredible job of making the center into something special, so our hope is twofold,” Gerber said. “We hope this is a place we can gather together and give exposure to this center to help it grow because it’s a great way to get the center the exposure it deserves while it also serves as a place that exemplifies the heart of what we represent as a group committed to growing the arts in our own community.”

The event is more casual than the banquet was, and he said this year showed a little more energy than last year’s gathering. He said they aren’t sure yet what they will do next year, but he said the important thing is the group continues to promote the arts.

Arts council board member Sherri Crilow said the arts continue to be a huge part of the Sugarcreek community, and coming to the new center gives exposure to both student work and professional work of area artists.

“For that reason alone, it’s nice to come to this venue for our event,” Crilow said. “We know people are busy, and we have to compete for a lot of things, but we now have a lot of new avenues to promote the arts, and that remains our biggest goal because we have some incredible artists in our community.”

Gerber introduced all the council’s board members and discussed the purpose of the council to those who might not be heavily involved. He said there remains excitement about what this group can do in promoting the arts in its community and the surrounding areas, including its involvement with Garaway High School.

“This group was robust 24 years ago when we started Arts Week at Garaway High School,” Gerber said. “The whole community bought in to it. This group has worked tirelessly to promote the arts.”

He said the group presents a variety of small fundraisers throughout the year including its annual SouperBowl evening, which comes around the NFL’s big game and features eight or 10 different types of soups served in handmade pottery bowls that will be for sale during the event.

Another fundraiser takes place during Fabulous 50s Fling each summer to build funds to grow the organization’s outreach.

“It’s about growing the art council’s ability to branch out into the community to promote all of the great opportunities and artists we have all around us,” Gerber said.