Celebrating Bethlehem's Southside Culture
A dynamic group of artists from across the country comprise the ArtsQuest’s Artist Collective, a resource of creative, networking, professional development, and career opportunities for visual artists. Katie Hovencamp is one of these multi-talented artists. An internationally recognized artist, Hovencamp explores the deconstruction of gender roles and interrogates social expectations of femininity through sculpture and…
David Sommers, a resident artist at the Banana Factory Arts Center, has known Bethlehem for many years. As an artist, Sommers started with just a black chalkboard: “I just drew and drew as a kid. I would draw out memories of films.” He tried to capture his surrounding environment while growing up in Guyana, South…
For Banana Factory Arts Center resident artist Stephanie Smith, Bethlehem ties run deep. Both sides of Smith’s family are from South Bethlehem, and steel workers dot her family tree. Arriving in the US in 1890, her paternal great grandfather was one of the South Bethlehem’s earliest Slovak immigrants and worked at Bethlehem Steel. He also…
Think Musikfest only offers live music? Think again! See a different side of Musikfest this year. New for 2017, the Spark Orthodontics Familienplatz boasts creative arts, workshops, rides, and more. Nestled in the colonial industrial quarter next to the Monocacy Creek on Bethlehem’s north side, Familienplatz has something for every Musikfester—from tots to adults, inexperienced…
The Banana Factory Arts Center has been Kim Hogan’s home for ten years now. Years ago, she took over the summer programs of a departing resident artist and has stayed with us as a teaching artist since. Here at the Banana Factory, Hogan wears many hats: resident artist, summer camp teacher, outreach program facilitator, and…
I found Virginia Abbott, a long-standing Banana Factory Arts Center resident artist, hard at work in her studio one Wednesday afternoon. Abbott warmly welcomed me. Her space is bright, open, and inviting. Like many of the studios at the Banana Factory Arts Center, there’s an almost palpable energy here—“good vibes,” if you will. Abbott has…
Since the age of seven, Melissa Perhamus knew that “there was something powerful” to her art. So, from the third grade on, she decided to dedicate her life to her artistic passions. The mixed-media artist hails from upstate New York, but has been established in the Lehigh Valley for nearly 20 years. Perhamus received her…
In 2012, wife and husband team Ellen and Tom decided to take a plunge and bring their 20-year idea into real life. As hobby-artists, the Flynn’s expressed their frustration for years over a common hurdle that many amateur artists experience – a lack of space to create. For years, Ellen recalled, they vented their frustration,…
When Griffin Mooney and Jake Martin first came to South Bethlehem two years ago as college freshmen, they had no plans to start a clothing company. Today, Mooney and Martin are sophomores in Lehigh University’s business school and spend their spare time running their own clothing company, Out East. The Beginning Griffin and Jake met…
When Lauren Beauchner starts talking about her art, her passion and love for her work simply flow out of her. Whether she is talking about her commissioned pet portraits or her colorful “party paintings,” you can tell right away that she loves what she does. Where Lauren Beauchner Started Lauren Beauchner is a Pennsylvania-born artist…