Local Talent on Display at Collingswood Second Saturday

As passersby approached the heart of Collingswood's Second Saturday festivities downtown this weekend, the jangly guitar pop of local trio Theopolis James lured them in, one by one.

Spectators filled a dozen or-so curbside chairs splayed in a loose configuration beside the sidewalk of Collingswood Music. They lingered in the street, watching as Collingswood TV filmed the performance.

One or two individuals dropped into Collingswood Music to chat with owner Ted Velykis over a glass of red wine.

The convivial atmosphere was at once inviting and unforced. Whether listeners stayed for the entire Theopolis performance, or took in a few notes and moved on, Velykis said the set achieved its intended effect— because Collingswood was creating art for its neighbors.

“Our contribution to Second Saturday is the One-Mile Concert Series,” Velykis said. “All the artists (we feature) are from Collingswood. The idea is that there’s a really fantastic artist living right next to you.”

Theopolis James frontman and guitarist Ted Bunch remarked that the open-air format liberates the band’s performance.

“There’s all kinds of people just wandering around,” said Bunch. “It’s neat to be able to play out in the community we live in and be able to have people walk by and take advantage.”

“It’s better than any show we go to,” added Theopolis James' bassist Joe Jandura. “It’s just a great atmosphere.”

Guitarist Bob Kelley, who played the first week of Collingswood Music’s One-Mile Concert Series, echoed the sentiments of Bunch and Jandura.

“I like the community feeling,” Kelley said. “You’re not trapped in the audience. People can come and go. It’s a casual, fluid dynamic.”

A few blocks down Haddon Avenue, the [WILL, FREE] Collective expressed a similar mandate: to help liberate their neighbors from the false notion that they’re inartistic.

“We encourage people to find that part of themselves that they lost,” said Jenny Pilong, one of the six-member local artist's troupe, which also includes Louie Devito, Stephen Kocher, Holly Coleman, Brandon Ryan, and Lisa Petite.

Pilong contends that everyone has an artistic streak, which is unlearned sometime after adolescence; thwarted by a self-limiting, consuming fear of, “making a mistake.”

“I think grown-up's get stuck in the fear that they’re going to mess it up,” Pilong said. “We try to get people to stop thinking about it.”

Every member of the [WILL, FREE] Collective is a self-taught artist. Pilong and Kocher credit Devito with opening their eyes to the potential of just diving in and finding a medium in which to express themselves.

“We’re all artists first,” Devito said, “and then we forget that we’re artists.”

Artwork from the Collective is on display at Grooveground, including two permanent, interactive wall installations on the side of the building, called "The Truth Is.." and "Before I Die," which invite the community to contribute their thoughts to the murals.

"How can we come together and put forth something that can bring people together with art?" asked Kochner. "There is a need to create; art or music, it's happening."