Morris Museum Event
November 22, 2019
Senior Meghana Maddali put together an event at the Morris Museum on October 24th. At the event, art created by a female artist in the local community was displayed and sold during a silent auction. All of the profits from the auction went to the League of Women Voters NJ, which is a nonpartisan organization that works to defend democracy and empower voters. This organization’s focus is to protect the right for women to vote, one fought so hard for throughout US history (the link to their website is below).
Meghana Maddali wanted to bring to light the amazing female artists in this community. Eight female artists donated their painting for the event, including Alice Harrison, Dannielle Mick, Laura Olderman, Laurel Clark, Laurie Harden, Patricia Flaherty, Sarah Engle, and Valarie Golden. On the Facebook page for the event, there are videos of three of the extraordinary female artist who attended the event talking about their art. The first video was of Dannielle Mick; she has been painting for thirty years and said that she finds her inspiration right outside her house by looking at Lake Parsippany. She loves to draw all things water-related and has many drawings of oceans as well as lakes. Another artist who attended this event was Alice Harrison, and she has been creating art her entire life. She works on art intuitively, although sometimes when she feels she needs to spread a specific message, such as teaching children peace and not hate, she will do a series of paintings to spread that message. The third artist is Laurie Harden; she draws a lot of animals, people, and has recently been painting many landscapes. She said in the video, “what I really like about creating art is the connection you get with the people who are viewing it and the people you are portraying. So I love to portray people from all different walks of life […] because we all have a commonality” and she likes to show this connection, between people, to the viewers of her art. Laurie Harden also loves to teach art because she likes to see people fall in love with art, and express themselves through their creations. All three of these women live in NJ and are very talented at their craft. Meghana Maddali, also sold one of her own paintings during the auction, for the event. All in all, the event was a success, many people came, one of which was the Morris Knolls Principal, Mr.MacNaughton, and Meghana Maddali was able to raise over four thousand dollars for the organization.
Meghana Maddali was driven to organize this event by her dedicated passion for art. In fact, she said that the purpose of the event was to reveal “the women behind the paintings” through showcasing their artwork. All high schoolers can learn from Meghana Maddali, as she used her passion and hard work to put the Evening of Women Empowerment together, and through it she made a positive impact on the community.
–https://www.lwv.org/voting-rights (this is the League of Women Voters)
–https://www.facebook.com/breakingartisticbarriers/ (the Facebook page for the event)
–https://patch.com/new-jersey/morristown/calendar/event/20191024/668086/an-evening-of-women-empowerment-breaking-artistic-barriers (link to the event page)