Riverview Arts Center News
Riverview Arts Center Activities 2008

Beginning Again!!

Poetry Readings—with featured poets and open mic!

Refreshments / Suggested donation $3.00

Starting Friday, Sept. 5, 2008 and every first Friday of the month

7:00 – 9:00 PM

The Riverview Arts Center

68 South Main Street, Phillipsburg, NJ 08865 * 908-454-4141

• A call to Artist and Craftsmen! The Riverview Arts Center is seeking volunteers to donate their time and energy to maintain and renovate the Center. Bring your skills and love to this great old space!
  Contact Monica McAghon for further information: 908-454-4141 or 610-252-3264.


• Lehigh Valley Cloggers with certified teacher Mary Snyder (908-537-2564).
• Sundays 12:30-1:00 PM--Children.
• Sundays 2:00-4:00 PM--Intermediate.
• Tuesdays 6:00-8:00 PM--Intermediate.
  
• Cost:
• Children: $20 for 10 lessons.
• Adults: $50 for 10 lessons.
• Students: $40 for 10 lessons.


• Martha Monroy and Xochiquetzal: Grupo Folklorico Mexicano dance troupe, practice at the Riverview Arts Center when their schedules permit. Contact Martha for further information: 908-859-5962


• Free Circle Martial Arts classes with Sensei William Lance, who is also a Phillipsburg, NJ policeman, meet Saturdays, 12 Noon – 2:00 PM, for all persons, all ages. Lance also organized a group of volunteers who painted walls and installed new mirrors in the upstairs studio space, and will paint the ceiling in the near future.


• Members of the community have requested Photography, Drawing classes for children, Watercolor classes for adults, Scrapbooking, and Irish Step Dancing. Artists and teachers willing to teach these classes are urged to send a proposal with resume to the Riverview Arts Center, 68 South Main St., Phillipsburg, NJ 08865. Call 908-454-4141 for more information.

Recent Shows in the Gallery:

In Vino Veritas! Truth in wine…and painting!

Every weekend in May, from 1:00 - 5:00 PM.
Riverview Arts Center, 68 So. Main Street, Phillipsburg, NJ.

 “I paint for the fun of it,” says Raffaele DePamphilis, who in November, 2006, began painting afterhis brother in Italy died and then too, his wife’s sister in Pen Argyl, as if his life depended on it. Portraits of family members, lighthouses from seashore vacations, local homes, churches and buildings, self-portraits, tomatoes, flowers, dogs, cats, a squirrel, a remarkable harvest in two years. Now 80, DePamphilis uncorked the wine of his earlier training in architectural geometry in Italy, and paints his pictures with acrylic colors; but he shies from calling himself an artist. In his defense, art agent Penny Farensbach said in a phone conversation, “the man has an eye for architecture and that has no age.”
True, he was not formally trained nor has he produced art until now, but the pictures are very persuasive. “They have a stark reality,” says Marie Tipton, a local buyer, “there’s a lot of reverence and feeling in his lines.” His paintings—the Log Cabin on Sullivan Trail, Tomatoes by Window, Natures Way on Northampton Street, the Quadrant Book Store and Café—are fine local wine, very good vintage.

Mr. DePamphilis paints what is now. He takes artistic license to move a tree or suggest just a few leaves to better reveal a building’s original lines; he may paint the gardens that once annexed the Simon Mansion, but much of his work we instantly recognize: Giacomo’s Delicatessen, Centre Square, various homes on College Hill, the flooded Delaware. 

First Prize – Raffaele DePamphilis: The Flood
The Morning Call’s Masterpiece Series 2008, exhibited at Baum School of Art, Allentown, Pennsylvania. 

The Flood is a view of the Delaware River by Riverside Bar & Grill, Rt. 611 North, Easton.

Raffaele began painting portraits of family and friends. Then he painted pets—cats and dogs—and inspired by Rembrandt’s self-portraits, he painted himself to his own liking.  One portrait shows him a glass of wine in hand—in vino veritas, a Latin phrase meaning in wine there is truth. In yet another portrait, he’s smiling and mellow in yellow shirt with a hat,  and in another, he painted himself holding a brush and painter’s palette in his hands. Getting better at it, he painted another of himself in tie, suit and hat, but looking like, well angry.
“A-ha-ha! Look at that,” he jokes, deciding the sequence of paintings at his recent show in the Quadrant Bookmart and Café.  “Let’s put it at the beginning with a sign: “Welcome to my show!” It’s all in good fun, and he’s anything but angry. Raffaele delights in opportunities to show his work. Accolades come from others. “Maybe I should take some lessons,” Raffaele once said to Bob Doney. “No, don’t take lessons, you’ll spoil your style,” Bob told him, “Nobody paints like you do.” 

It’s helpful to take in some biography to see how his talent was nurtured. Growing up in Italy, Raffaele survived WWII bombing raids by the US and a bout of typhoid fever that killed his 18-year old sister. He studied geometry for his diploma from Technico Instituto Tito Acerbo, Pescara, where he also acted bit parts and painted sets for plays. Afterwards, he worked six years with architects and engineers in Italy before coming to the USA in 1956.  He wooed and was wooed by Lucia Caporaso of Pen Argyl whom he eventually married, and where they lived with her family for a few years. After officials denied the reciprocity of his diploma, he went to work as a fabric cutter for the clothing trade.  

When daughters Caroline and Violetta were young, Raffaele and Lucia took them on a trip to Italy and France, and they soon realized that Lucia was pregnant with daughter Anne. Raffaele advanced his car by ship and they had an adventurous time touring around Italy, visiting family and museums.  Within months they came back to the United States and eventually moved to Easton, where he started his own business.
He labored for more than thirty years at Raffaele’s Dip and Strip in Forks Township, with a changing crew of assistants. They had another daughter—Claudia, named after Claude Debussy. He remodeled his home—including a six-foot wide stone and cement staircase to the cellar. They enjoyed opera over the radio, occasionally played out their own opera so to speak, or travelled to hear the real thing in New York City. 

Raffaele gardened and cooked for family and friends and neighbors, making  from scratch pasta carbonara, osso buco, tiramisu, and babarum, just a few of the many recipes in his as-yet-unpublished cookbook. Mondays were saved for fishing. “Boning the Shad” shows a plate of shad with a recipe written underneath:  “Wrap the shad in foil and bake at 350 degrees for eight hours until the bones melt.”

Since Lucia passed in 1993, he has taken a trip to Italy nearly every year. His health, affected by the chemicals of the Dip and Strip, has not limited his energy for painting an astonishing number of paintings, and playing out the details of showing his work to the public. And he makes frequent and proud reference to his family, his daughters, sons-in-law, and eleven grandchildren. Mr. DePamphilis may say he paints for the fun of it, but his painting has fermented for years in a vast and yet familiar, fabulously cultured heritage.

 “In Vino Veritas,” an exhibit of his paintings will show weekends in May at The Riverview Arts Center, 68 So. Main Street, Phillipsburg, NJ. An opening reception for the artist will be held on Saturday, May 3, and Sunday, May 4, 1:00-5:00 PM.  For further information call 908-454-4141.

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