News
Brightening the surroundings of those who’d rather be elsewhere
News Article
September 25, 2014
A day that began like any other in the Norristown courtroom of Montgomery County Judge Carolyn Tornetta Carluccio sparked a novel idea that energized an entire community.
The idea was to dress up the bare walls where she presides on the plaza level of the 114-year-old courthouse.
“When you go into a courtroom — whether you’re an attorney, judge, or victim that has to face an aggressor — it’s a very stressful place,” she said. “And when you look at blank walls, it doesn’t do a lot to ease that stress.”
It occurred to the judge that maybe she ought to take her concern to the Montgomery Bar Association Outreach Committee, which she chaired. The challenge was warmly received, and by May 2013 a juried art competition — Courting Art: What I Love About Montgomery County — had been launched that attracted more than 100 entries.
The 40 framed winners now adorn the walls of the “boardwalk,” or area frequented by jurors and most litigants as they enter the courthouse.
The event was so successful that it was repeated this year. Montgomery County Judges Garrett D. Page and Richard P. Haaz, along with President Judge William J. Furber, joined Judge Carluccio in choosing winners. This year’s winners hang in the hallway between courtrooms 1 and 3.
“Doctors’ offices and hospitals have realized — long before the legal community — that putting artwork up on the wall helps ease stress,” Judge Carluccio said. “You can’t go into one now that doesn’t have artwork.”
Pennsylvania’s historic courthouses are unquestionably rich in architectural significance and artistry. And Montgomery County’s is no exception — home to some magnificent murals that decorate its main courtrooms.
But attention to such finer points has waned in newer court facilities across the Commonwealth as communities weigh project costs and aesthetics. Such is the case in Montgomery County, where the last time artwork was commissioned for the courthouse was in the 1950s.
As a result, Pennsylvania courts are pressed to become more creative in their approach to make friendlier spaces. The prevailing wisdom among court professionals is that more comfortable environs make for better defendants, witnesses, jurors, court staffers and visitors.
Bedford County had that in mind for the once-barren walls of its then-new family court building. Court officials enlisted support from area high school students who were invited to present works of art depicting their impressions of families.
Nearly 100 paintings, drawings and paper cuttings were submitted. The Bedford County Arts Council selected 36 pieces that were put on permanent display in the courtroom, waiting room and conference rooms.
“I was uplifted by the outcome because all of the pictures display some sort of positive side of family life,” said Senior Judge Daniel L. Howsare, who initiated the program. “They were very well received. I still see people looking at them.”
Judge Howsare said the effort — which involved the local bar association, county and area businesses — was similar to one the county did 25 years earlier to dress up bare walls on the first floor of the historic courthouse with work commissioned by an area artist.
“We loved the idea,” said Lynn Ashe, arts council chair. “Partly because it gives kids an opportunity to have their work permanently displayed, but mostly because it warms the walls and makes the courthouse a less forbidding place for the families in crisis who come there.”
And various types of art are displayed in the law library of the Fayette County Courthouse, thanks to an artist-of-the-month program begun in 2007 by Barbara Pasqua, an assistant law librarian.
Most of the items displayed at the law library also are for sale, boosting the incentive for people to participate.
“I am amazed every month when I see the wonderful things that are created by artists in the Fayette County area,” Pasqua said.
Since launching the inaugural Montgomery County program in 2013, more than 70 works have begun transforming the courthouse into a popular gallery of homegrown treasures at no cost to taxpayers.
“Finances are so very important and on everyone’s mind,” Judge Carluccio noted. “We didn’t want to take taxpayer money to fund this issue — important as it is. We decided there was another way to do it.”
The cash-conscious Montgomery County program used the bar association outreach committee’s connections to community organizations and leaders to attract sponsors and cash prizes of as high as $1,000 to award. Organizers say they have raised more than $35,000 in sponsorships since the program began.
At first, Montgomery organizers thought of reaching out to area schools to cover the walls in children’s art. But after some further thought, they favored the idea of opening the contest up exclusively to the senior community — those 55 and older — to capitalize on more polished professional and amateur artists in the area. Entrants were asked to find their inspiration in the contest theme, What I Love About Montgomery County.
The idea quickly caught on. Soon entire retirement communities were engaged in developing contest entries.
A pair of mixed-media pictures entered in the 2013 competition by two groups of residents at a Hatboro nursing home earned the groups a special Community Spirit Award, wall space near the courthouse jury room and art supplies for their 2014 entry.