Shoppers to Explore Holiday Gift Ideas at Arts Council’s “Sauce for the Goose”

Dilshanie Perera

Having begun 17 years ago as a small sale of student artwork, “Sauce for the Goose,” sponsored by the Arts Council of Princeton (ACP), has become a full-fledged holiday bazaar offering unique pieces of art in various media made by more than 30 area artists. The show and sale will be held in the Paul Robeson Center’s Taplin Gallery and will kick off with an opening reception from 4 to 7 p.m. on Friday, December 3.

ACP Community Arts Manager and sale organizer Maria Evans explained that the event and showcase has grown steadily since its inception. “Every year we invite new artists to join us. It is ever-evolving and a great way to support local artists as well as programming at the Arts Council.”

“A lot of artists have been involved [in the sale] for years,” Ms. Evans explained. “They’ll recommend new people they’ve seen or worked with to me, and I look at people’s stuff all year long.”

Traveling to area crafter’s markets, as well as galleries in places like New Hope and Lambertville, Ms. Evans meets with artists and invites them to display and sell their work at “Sauce for the Goose,” which lends the sale the feel and features of a juried show.

Teaching artist and ACP ceramics instructor Rod Martino expressed his excitement about the show Tuesday as he readied his decorative and functional pottery in the gallery. Having worked with clay for the past 20 years, the Bucks County artist said his entrance into the field was spurred by his family. “My mother is a jeweler and my father is a craftsman … we were always making things with our hands.”

Ms. Evans expected that the opening would “feel more like a gallery opening” than a temporary store opening, predicting that many of the artists would be present.

While the Arts Council collects a nominal fee from the sales, most of the proceeds go to the artists, whose works span media from paintings and drawings, to functional ceramics and photography, to craft objects like jewelry and baskets. As items are sold and shoppers take them home, artists will be invited to replenish their stock in the gallery, the idea being to keep things lively and allow for the showcasing of more of their work in the space.

Each year, an artist or group of artists is invited to create an installation in the gallery space to be featured alongside the artworks for sale. This holiday season is no exception, as a group of students from Princeton High School got together to create a soup can construction using Campbell’s soup (no doubt a nod to Warhol). Even better: “When the sale comes down, the Crisis Ministry will get the cans,” Ms. Evans noted, referring to the local non-profit working to alleviate hunger in central Jersey. “So it comes full-circle.”

“Sauce for the Goose” will be on view until December 21.

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