Art for Recovery to bring its mission to Greensburg Music Fest

Art for Recovery and Transformation will participate in the second annual Greensburg Music Fest on Sept. 13, by hosting an interactive painting activity and an art show and sale featuring some artists who are in recovery.

The organization will have a booth in the night market section of the festival.

Event attendees will be invited to help create a painting depicting “the face of addiction,” according to organizer Toni Antonucci, the mother of Art for Recovery founder Demetre Josebeck, who died as a result of substance use disorder in 2018.

Participants will add their thumbprints, representing their individual identities, to a canvas to create a portrait of Josebeck and the late Sage Capozzi, who also succumbed to substance use and was the inspiration for Sage’s Army, a drug awareness/prevention organization created by his father, Carmen Capozzi.

Acrylics and abstracts

Some of the featured artists and their work will be:

• Madeline Swiger, who creates large abstract acrylics and will demonstrate fluid pour painting

• Cassidy Roach, who will sell abstract paintings, jewelry and dream catchers. Roach will demonstrate either a painting or a dream catcher

• Petra Parquette, who will demonstrate and sell mosaic acrylic painting on canvas

• Toby Rager, who will paint live to the festival music.

Pieces of Josebeck’s work also will be displayed and sold. Antonucci will display and sell pieces from her “Poppies” collection.

“Poppies are the source of opium/ morphine. This collection is a representation of the juxtaposition between the beauty of this delicate flower and the toll it’s taken on a community,” she says.

Founder Carolyn Hilliard and co-founder Donny Donovan of Pittsburgh-based Empath Sober Bar also will be on hand. The pop-up bar stages events with music, comedy, movement, art, workshops and creative non-alcoholic drinks.

A sober vision

“Demetre had a vision of using art and social events to heal and recover. His ultimate goal was to create a Sober Bar in Greensburg,” Antonucci says. “Sage’s Army is working diligently to make Demetre’s vision a reality.

“When you get into recovery, you have to give up people, places and things and sometimes you don’t have anyone left,” she says. “You don’t have sober social options and a sober social community, so we’re trying to carry on that mission.”

The annual Art for Recovery and Transformation event marks National Recovery Month in September. The 2019 event is supported by Westmoreland County Parks and Recreation, Sage’s Army, Strive Health of Greensburg and Westmoreland County Overdose Task Force.

The Greensburg Music Fest will feature more than 30 bands on seven stages, food trucks, vendors and an after-party with a location to be announced that day. Information is available at thepalacetheatre.org.

For information on Art for Recovery and Transformation, call 724-972-2590 or email toniantonucci3@gmail.com.