This month, we’re continuing our Year of the Arts celebration with a deep dive into the Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts. Alongside the organization’s president, Sharon Zook, we’re looking back at when the council was founded, why it’s important, and how it has impacted those in the Lebanon Valley community, including Zook herself.

How it started

The Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts (LVCA) was founded in 1970 as a gathering of local artists in the Lebanon Valley. Later in 1975, the organization was formally incorporated, and the LVCA launched into its first publicly funded program in 1976. The program, a bicentennial series of artists’ lectures and demonstrations in honor of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the United States, included well-known local artists such as Bruce Johnson, a well-known watercolor and pen and ink artist, and Frank Weidman, a stained-glass artist who is still in business today.

In discussing these early days with Sharon Zook, she shares that there isn’t much documented about the first few years of the organization. She notes that the funding for the Council often ebbed and flowed, and that maintaining the organization was difficult for the artists and volunteers. By the mid-1990s, says Zook, all that was left of the organization was a small box of documents.

A home for the arts

When that box was found by a group of artists in the late 1990s, a discussion soon ensued over whether to continue the LVCA or simply throw the box away. One such artist involved in that discussion was Seamus Carmichael, an art professor from Ireland. When Carmichael found out that Lebanon had once had a council on the arts, much like those found in his native Ireland, he became interested in recreating that central home for the arts.

Zook explains that in the coming months and years, Carmichael and his wife worked tirelessly to bring the organization back to life. With the community’s help, they slowly worked through grant writing, business development, feasibility studies, and even sent out surveys in local water bills to gauge interest in the organization. Looking back at how Carmichael, his wife, and the community revived the organization, much like she would eventually do years later, Zook states, “One thing with any arts organization is that you need to work with what you have: ‘What do you have? What can you work with moving forward? What can you build on from there?’”

The organization saw some success after its revival, receiving grants in 1993 for an art directory, and in 2004 for a workshop and performance by the Pennsylvania Ballet. By the 2000s, after two failed attempts at securing grant money from the state, the LVCA finally received a series of grants from the DCED for the purchase of a building in Downtown Lebanon. Around 2006, the former St. Joseph’s Convent building on Willow Street was purchased by the organization and opened a year later, after many extensive (and expensive) renovations.

(The First) First Friday Art Walk

In 2007, the LVCA began holding one of the events that they are best known for today: the First Friday Art Walk. Established with the intent to bring visibility and community to both the arts and the businesses downtown, the Art Walks also served as a way to engage artists with non-artists. For Zook, who fell into that “non-artist” category at the time, the First Friday Art Walk was her first interaction with LVCA, “My background is not in art—I have a master’s degree in psychology, and I grew up in a cabinet shop.” She explains. “However, when I was told about the art center and the First Friday Art Walk, I went with friends and enjoyed it.”

Although she didn’t join the organization at the time, the current president of the LVCA eventually found her way back to the arts after an unexpected turn, “In 2011, I finished my masters and finished my working hours for the masters, and I thought I would go into working in clinical psychology,” says Zook. “Then I found out I had cancer. Before I could do anything, I had to take care of myself.”

As Zook put her life on pause with surgeries lined up on her calendar, a friend suggested meeting with a watercolorist that they had seen on the art walk. Zook agreed, inviting the artist and her friend to her home where she brought out a children’s watercolor set, “We water colored together, and the artist in me came out,” says Zook. “It really helped me to get through a difficult time.”

Shifting gears

After completing a successful round of treatments in 2012, Zook continued to watercolor. By mid-2012, she exhibited on the First Friday Art Walk for the first time with watercolor paintings of flowers. But that following year, news came out that the LVCA was on the brink of shutting down and Zook was not in support. “I just thought how much of a loss it would be to this community if the things that support, connect, and bring people together are gone,” she recalls. “I had been through that experience of using the Art Walk to connect with the art community during a difficult time and it meant a lot to me, so I reached out to see why they were closing and I started asking questions.”

Just like in the 90s, a group was brought together to discuss the future of the organization. Upon finding that there was interest in the community to continue the LVCA, a new board was formed and soon Zook found herself nominated as the organization’s president.

Although it was a big switch from the career she sought out for in psychology, Zook found that her perspective had changed as she found her way in the art community, “I never ended up going into clinical psychology,” she says. “I found that it was more important to me to do these preventative things, rather than being there when people are ready to be diagnosed. Listening to people and working with them—it shifted gears for me.”

“We make our projects so that anyone can come and contribute to them.”

Since accepting the role as the LVCA’s president in 2013, Zook has continued to pursue the organization’s mission of promoting all disciplines of the arts, encouraging appreciation of the arts, and enhancing the Lebanon Valley’s quality of life through the arts. In talking to her about some of her favorites aspects of the organization, it is hard to miss Zook’s passion for the Lebanon Valley community, and giving that community a voice through the arts, “We want to communicate and connect, and we need to continue to be attentive to the community and their needs—what do people want, what are they interested in, what do they need that we can offer?”

One of the ways that Zook and the LVCA have helped give voice to the community is through mosaic murals. Zook shares that these murals serve a multitude of purposes, with a special focus on the needs of young people in the Lebanon Valley, “Youth need to be heard, attended to, taught, guided… when that doesn’t happen in constructive ways, that shows in public places,” Zook explains. “These mosaic murals are public projects that give voice to our people today. They are also for the future so that the youth see that their community is listening which encourages them to engage positively and trust the community.”

The organization has also introduced other community events over the years such as their monthly collage lounges, as well as various collaborative projects with local high schools, which have been a highlight for Zook, “I think that our work with the students is valuable and important—there are plenty of students that need extracurriculars and an outlet besides sports,” says Zook.

Of course, Zook continues to organize the First Friday Art Walks, just like those that so greatly impacted her years ago. And whether it’s organizing those Art Walks or (literally) piecing together a community art project, Zook still holds closely to the way that the arts helped her, and the ways that it may help others too.

“With art, people can grow into it—you dabble around and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t but it can be a gateway into other things: music, graphic design, there’s a lot of things it can help a person with… sometimes art is like your life saver—it’s the one thing that keeps you above water.”