Paterson Art Walk: Creative Delights Within City Warehouse Walls

Ian Grinyer a painter who teaches art at Ivanhoe and Paterson’s Dawn Treader Christian School was involved in Art Walk for a second year said, “There were more people than we’ve had before. The Dolphin Mill gave us more space to work with.”

Emil Silverman, a sculptor and installation artist from New York said that the Paterson show “drew very high level work.”  He attributed this in part to the fact that artists are not governed by curators at Art Walk, and therefore have more freedom, as well as to the unique architecture of the pre-Civil War era mills, whose enormous brick structures “breathe like ancient walls.” 

According to Silverman, they “reproduce what Soho was like in the 60’s. There you had textile factories and artists worked with the spaces. The work they produced stole the stage from Europe and pushed America to the forefront of art. It was an amazing point in art history and you see artists recreating the same experiences in Paterson. These spaces really stimulate the creative mind to start working.”

Twenty-two locations throughout Paterson’s Commercial and Historic Districts were set aside to showcase the art of two hundred artists from New York and New Jersey. The works were of all genres and ranged from performing arts, live poetry and dance to photography, oil painting and installations.