This weekend's Second Saturday Trade Days has a special artistic flair to it with a Paint on the Porch event from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Held at the art gallery inside the 1894 City Market at Olive and Front streets, Paint on the Porch will feature roughly 10 local artists doing their work for all to see. Artists who are interested in joining them are encouraged to contact the gallery and come on down to participate.
Featured artists include Carole Berry, Cari Brown, Robert Burns, Terri deNatale, Jeannie Knod Edwards, Carol Flori, Danny Helms, Mary Jane Orr, Eileen Stearman and Katie Stone.
"Anybody's open to come and paint with us out here on the porch," Helms said. "They can show up and show their craft. We're trying to expose more people to art in action in the artists that are involved here, plus bringing them down to the gallery."
Helms, one of the artists with work at Georgia Hubnik's gallery, often paints outside. "They love to see artists doing that in action," he said. He'd like to bring more attention to the new gallery, which used to be located on East Broad Street.
"We're hoping on that Second Trade Days with the artists being out there, people can roam around, talk to the artists, see all the different styles that we do and then come and visit on the inside, enjoy the art and just get more people involved," Helms said.
The artists do a range of different types of work, from watercolors to photography, detailed acrylics, stylized acrylics, abstract, colored pencil work and more. Most of these artists included this time have work shown at the gallery.
Arts participation with the Second Saturday Trade Days has gone over well, said Helms.
"That seems like it's going over real good," he said about including an interactive arts element. He said they've seen good traffic at the art gallery, too, with people discovering them via Trip Advisor, including visitors from Los Angeles.
"That's pulling some people in," Helms said.
(More info: Check out the 1894 Gallery and 1894 City Market pages on Facebook.)