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The 7th annual Arts and Music Festival in Gloucester City takes shape.

Working on a shoestring, a wing, and a prayer - make that many prayers - Mary Lou Adams and a handful of other volunteers are vowing that the show will go on this year in Gloucester City.

(L-R) Patricia Marie Sims, Kelly Ann Sauer, and Mary Lou Adams (all from Gloucester City) at Proprietors Park in Gloucester City on May 12, 2015. They hope to make the 7th annual Arts and Music Festival happen at the park in mid-June.  ( ELIZABETH ROBERTSON / Staff Photographer )
(L-R) Patricia Marie Sims, Kelly Ann Sauer, and Mary Lou Adams (all from Gloucester City) at Proprietors Park in Gloucester City on May 12, 2015. They hope to make the 7th annual Arts and Music Festival happen at the park in mid-June. ( ELIZABETH ROBERTSON / Staff Photographer )Read more

Working on a shoestring, a wing, and a prayer - make that many prayers - Mary Lou Adams and a handful of other volunteers are vowing that the show will go on this year in Gloucester City.

The seventh annual Art, Music, and Crafts Festival sponsored by a private organization called the Gloucester City Cultural Arts and Heritage Society is set for June 13 at Proprietors Park, along South King Street on the downtown waterfront.

Music, art, crafts, collectibles, food, and children's entertainment will be offered from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m., said Adams, who this spring had considered canceling the event because of a seeming lack of interest on the part of longtime participants.

Traditionally a homespun affair without corporate sponsorships or famous names, the festival was on the verge of unraveling.

"We had so many great artists, but they just walked away," said Adams, the cultural society's founder and director. "Some of them may have advanced [beyond] our festival, and that's OK.

"I blame myself," she added. "I got a late start this year."

But a vendor from Sicklerville called, was shocked to hear the event might be canceled, and persauded her to keep going, Adams said. And other vendors, including Christie Cammarota of Haddon Township and Oscar Robles of Magnolia are returning, as well.

When I caught up with Adams and her loyal volunteers Kelly Sauer and Patricia Marie Sims at Proprietors Park, the three had begun distributing promotional fliers all over town.

"We need more exposure," said Sims, a caregiver and artist who works in charcoal and acrylics. "I've been praying a lot about it."

By last week, Adams had secured several new vendors and crafts people - "we've got lots of jewelry" - and a half-dozen musical acts had committed to perform, as well. "Things are looking better," she said.

"I have musicians banging down the door," said Adams' daughter, Michelle Biehl, a human resources professional who lives in Audubon.

Biehl also is lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of Shadow Station, one of the five rock acts scheduled to play at the park pavilion. The others are the Jersey Peaches, Lost Art, Tom Jenkins, and the C.C. Jackson Band.

"It's fun playing the festival," Biehl said. "We could use more people in the audience, but bands bring their own fans."

On the marina end of the park, several jazz and jazz-pop performers also will make music, including Adams herself ("I sing show tunes and standards. . . . I wear many hats"); Willingboro vocalist Tamyra Stanton, who sings R&B and jazz; and Gloucester resident John Testa, a drummer.

Testa will play with a trio, Glass Slipper Flight Plan, which includes his twin brother, Stephen, on bass and guitarist Joseph Pettit. "It's a chance to expose folks in Gloucester to our music," Testa, 53, said.

The society was established in 2009 "to bring the world of music, art, and heritage to Gloucester," said founding member Rae Whelan, a retired Camden County clerical worker who has lived in the blue-collar city for 40 years.

"We wanted to encourage the children, the senior citizens, anybody and everybody who could sing, play an instrument, write poetry, or read their short stories, or talk about their heritage, even if they had never done so in front of an audience," she said.

The founders envisioned the festival and smaller events at churches and public buildings as opportunities for city residents to feel comfortable sharing their artwork, music, and writing. The most recent smaller event, a show of watercolors at the Gloucester Heights Fire Hall, was held in November 2013.

"We've had people who filled notebooks up with poetry, and no one had ever seen it. And they brought in their notebooks and read poetry," Whelan said. "One year, a grandfather brought his banjo and played it to his heart's content. The older ladies just loved it, and it was a nice thing."

Adams said the city had supported the festival "emotionally," noting Mayor Bill James' mother-in-law once exhibited her artwork.

Though the municipal government does not have the resources to underwrite the festival, "we support Mary Lou," City Administrator Jack Lipsett said. "We put the festival banner up over Broadway for her. It brings people into town, and anything that gets people to come in we support."

"We like the fact that it's local," said Cammarota, a Gloucester native who has sold her crocheted creations for pets, infants, and adults at the festival for several years.

She will be holding down several booths, along with her brother, Matthew, who does the Japanese papercutting art called kamikiri, and her mother, Kathy, who makes pillows and decorates them with her handmade brooches. Kathy and Matthew live in the city, Cammarota said.

"We like it because you're not charged an ungodly amount of money" to sell there, she said, adding that the festival is the right size and has the right atmosphere for modest, part-time operations like hers.

"You're not thrown in with all these well-oiled machines who are [selling] full-time," she said.

Adams said she hoped emerging city artists would use the festival as an opportunity to show their work for the first time. Sims and Sauer have grown as artists by doing so in the relative safety of this friendly, hometown venue, she added.

Said Whelan, "We had a lady a couple of years ago who was 80 and had a basement full of paintings she had done. She never thought anyone would want to look at them, let alone buy one. She brought her work out into the daylight and let everyone see it and buy it.

"It gives me the shivers just thinking about it."

For information about exhibiting at the festival, call 856-456-1462.

856-779-3845@inqkriordan

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