Is soap art?
“My soap is,” said Jennifer Marie Hofmann, who displays many colorful bars of soap in a booth sheltered by the shade of a tree during Marion’s “Arts in the Park” festival held by the Marion Arts Center on Sunday.
The Ayer resident, who turned a 2009 hobby into a thriving business in 2012, got to a point where she had made so much soap she was giving it away.
“My family and friends were like, ‘We don’t need any more,’ but I just made more,” said Hofmann, who just brings it on the road nowadays.
Thus the business, Jennifer’s Handmade Soaps, where soap is apparently art and not just some of the time like when it’s a national-brand soap procured from the shelves of a big-box department store.
Thanks to a former employer who had a summer residence in Mattapoisett, Hofmann discovered Marion Art Center’s signature summer event and has been back every year since. She was particularly thrilled that Arts in the Park was held this year since her typically busy schedule was severely truncated by cancelations due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I don’t do boring,” said Hofmann of her designs. Her business slogan goes “Because soap should be more than just functional.”
Hofmann’s bars of soap all have some sort of design, be it the blue and black bar with the cream-colored heart that runs through the middle or the one that looks like the swirls you’d see on a candlepin bowling ball. The options are not all rectangular boxed shape with hard edges, there is a “squirrel” bar and a “unicorn” bar. “From the horn to the ears to the hair to the bar, it’s all soap,” she said.
Even though Saturday’s storm did not live up to the forecast, the rain day turned out to be the right day as Sunday brought drier air and, combined with the shade offered by the trees at Bicentennial Park, no one felt punished to be outside.
“We are so pleased. I think the vendors are really happy … because they hadn’t had any shows this year. This is, for many of them, their first show of the season or maybe their only or one of few,” said Marion Art Center Executive Director Jodi Stevens. “It’s funny, first we had everything planned for Saturday and we were supposed to get that torrential storm, and it never happened.”
The decision was made on Friday to move the event to Sunday, and it was a hit.
Attendees migrated back and forth across Main Street, walking the vendors’ booths in the park and on the other side of Main Street checking out the displays going on at the Marion Art Center (see article by Marilou Newell).
“We were sort of thinking that we might have fewer attendees, but it’s probably for the best because we want to keep things safe for everybody,” said Stevens, noting Arts in the Park had 21 or 22 vendors this year as opposed to the traditional 40. “It was good for us because we could space them farther apart and just give more room for people to move around.
“I’ve had a lot of people come up and say, ‘Oh, I’m so glad you chose to do this today, and it took us a while to make the decision, but we decided the community really, probably was looking for something.”
While the town was leveraged by the pandemic into canceling its entire summer recreation program along with key events including Memorial Day and July 4 parades along with the town party previously scheduled for August 22, art found a way.
“We have some new people, too, and for them to be here on a year like this is remarkable to me because it’s sort of like and off year because of COVID-19,” said Stevens. “And I spoke pretty regularly to the Board of Health in Marion as well as the town administrator’s office just to make sure that we were following the guidelines and that we could actually do it.”
Local legend Lynn Hahn of Earthsea Glass had her unique jewelry on display and explained how her art has evolved.
“One day, because the class I was supposed to take the building had a fire, and my friend and I were sitting out in the parking lot waiting to get the all-clear – they never gave it – and we said, ‘Well what are we going to do?’ We went to a glass show,” recalled the longtime Marion resident who lives nearby on Converse Road. “There was a woman there who has seahorses and fish, all done in glass and I went, ‘This is what I want.’”
It turned out that artist taught a class in Worcester so Hahn commuted to her classes as many times as she could to learn the craft.
“I became completely happy in making my own beads for my own work,” she said.
Other jewelry artists at the Festival included: Trish Kozub of iDazz Custom Designs; Donna Andrews-Maness (swinglanestudio.com); Pam Estey (magpiescollection.com … recycled tin jewelry); Melanie Ungvarsky (stonethatflows.com … jewelry and fused glass); and Virginia Stevens (virginiastevensdesigns.com).
Ceramics artists included: Tessa Morgan of Flying Pig Pottery (flyingpigpottery.biz); Chrissy Feiteira of Chrissy Anne Ceramics; and Andrea Brown of Fire Garden Pottery (instagram.com/firegardenpottery).
Fiber artists included: Liz Howland; Barbara Materna of BABS (babsetc.com); Mary Monteiro of Threads Gallery (silk scarves, art prints); Roberta Shapiro of Roberta Shapiro Design (coasters, scarves, pouches); and Lisa Elliott (handwoven goods).
Other artists included: Ruth Weinstein (handmade marble paper goods); Cindy Walsh of Red Rover Clothing (redroverclothing.com); Lisa Mackey of Lisa Mackey Design (lisamackey.com … leather and gems accessories); Susan Gelotte (wood cut and linoleum block prints); Kim Savoie (kimsavoieglass.com); Carol Way Wood (carolwaywood.com … paintings, prints, illustrations); Tracey Michaelson (paintingdaisies.com … photography); James Gallagher and Bill Judd (wood fish and Nantucket baskets); and Sharlie Sudduth (painting).
Jim Bride represented Sippican Lands Trust.
For more information on Hahn’s work, visit earthseaglass.com. For more information on Hofmann’s soap and bath products, visit jennifersoap.com. For more information on Marion Art Center programs and displays, visit marionartcenter.org or email jodi@marionartcenter.org.
By Mick Colageo