PoMeCo Celebrates First Anniversary
Walking into an art show, one would not expect trap music, mixed drinks and arcade games, but it’s the norm at PoMeCo art parties. Poughkeepsie Media Collective, known to most simply as “PoMeCo,” celebrated its one year anniversary on March 3rd. To celebrate the creative community’s first anniversary, their third and signature “art party” was held at CRWN Gallery on Main Street in Poughkeepsie.
PoMeCo consists of a group of artists who have come together in order to strengthen the creative community in the Poughkeepsie area. With an already extensive number of collaborators featured on their website, PoMeCo welcomes creatives working with any medium who take interest in joining. They collaborate with many passionate visual artists, musicians and talents to put on shows and events at various venues in the city.
“I think it’s important to show the talent and entertainers of Poughkeepsie. Poughkeepsie gets such a bad reputation for being dirty and dangerous but PoMeCo raises awareness for the talent and millennials of Poughkeepsie,” said Jordan Gooding, a PoMeCo supporter who has attended a multitude of events.
PoMeCo Art Parties are art shows with music and drinks alongside some type of live art event. It makes for a casual setting, thus coercing attendees to take it easy and stay a while. To celebrate PoMeCo’s first anniversary, an art battle was held as the main event of the night. The battle, which started around 8PM, involved four local creatives. Donna Mikkelson of AmbiArts, Risa Tochigi of BoogieREZ, Nestor Madalengoitia and Mike Long of Skatchface worked on their individual canvases perched alongside one another.
The four artists worked at various speeds, and often paused to take a step back and assess their work before leaning back in to continue where they left off. After an hour and a half, the artists were told to switch to one another’s canvas. Donna added words to Mike’s canvas and he added figures to hers. Risa used a black marker to add depth to Nestor’s piece, and in contrast, Nestor used a colorful collection of paints to create patterns in empty spaces on Risa’s piece. About nearly an hour later, the artists switched back to their own canvas.
“PoMeCo had an event over the summer before I moved in, but since then I have been to all their shows. They occasionally have other people collaborate with them but this past party was their third official Art Party,” said Gooding.
With a chill atmosphere, the party went on until nearly 2AM. People of all ages came and left. Some brought friends and others arrived alone. Attendees observed the live painting with drinks in hand. They made their way to and from each canvas, curious about the development of each piece. Over the course of the night, viewers were able to witness each piece come to life. It required squeezing between people or standing on the tips of toes just to get a glimpse of the canvas. Simply by looking around the room, it was clear that within one year, PoMeCo had made huge strides in bringing the creative community together.
