Batavia involves writers at Art in Your Eye

The Batavia Art in Your Eye festival has incorporated a new community collaboration project, “Drawn With Words,” to bring artists and writers together to create unique pieces of art.

Festival coordinator Rebecca Allen came up with the idea, and said the purpose was to involve the community before the festival started.

Kevin Moriarity, with Waterline Writers, coordinated the writers. The group conducts readings once a month at Water Street Studios in Batavia, and Moriarity only needed to send out a few emails to attract interest.

“We have a lot of talent in the area,” he said.

Writers were asked to write a 50-word short story and submit it anonymously to a blog. Artists then read the stories and chose one that inspired them to create a piece that could represent the words. Once a piece was chosen, writers and artists are given each other’s name.

By coincidence the two organizers were linked. Allen was inspired by Moriarity’s written work and created a piece to represent it. “In Rebecca’s case, she got my vision really, really well,” Moriarity said.

In other pairs, some artists contacted the writers to ask more questions about the story and others created a separate vision they saw in the writings.

Moriarity said this experience is really different. “Most of the writers are pretty darn excited about it,” he said.

From the 78 written submissions, 20 illustrations were made for the exhibit. Drawings and words were combined by the artists on a wrapped canvas. “The work is wonderful and the quality is great,” Allen said.

Allen continues to look for ways to involve the community.

“We’ll probably keep this as an ongoing project ... we want to have shows throughout the year,” she said.

“It’s really fun to collaborate with the arts,” Moriarity said.

Pieces from the project can be purchase at the silent auction during the festival.