Art exhibit at Dutot in Delaware Water Gap features eight local artists named Jill

“Eight local artists named Jill walk into a gallery.”

This may sound like a lead-up to an elaborate pun, but it is the very real premise behind an art show being held at the Antoine Dutot Museum & Gallery in Delaware Water Gap this weekend.

According to Jill Swersie, an oil painter, the JUST JILLS Art Show has been years in the making.

“Slowly we got to know each other,” said Swersie of her artist friends also named Jill. “We would make jokes, say, ‘Oh, we should just do a just Jills show with all of us Jills.’”

It was Swersie’s husband, a photo artist and retired comedian aptly named Jack, who put together the show. He called up the other local Jill artists he knew and pitched them the idea.

“Not one of them was not interested in doing it,” Jack Swersie said.

“I am honestly just excited to be in a room with seven other Jill artists and to take a picture with all of us together and our art and kind of celebrate our Jill-dom,” said Jill Howell, who will be showcasing a mixed-media collage and a number of paintings and sculptures at the show.

Howell, an art therapist by trade, said the show’s concept was “very freeing,” for there is no cohesive theme besides the shared name of the artists.

“It’s fun to have a concept behind an art show, not have it just be like, oh, the flower show or the photography show,” Howell said. “It’s the Jills show.”

Jillian DeLuca, who described herself as an “honorary Jill,” said that she hadn’t met many of the Jills before the show came together, but that she was “honored to be a part of their group.”

“We all have our own unique styles, and even maybe sometimes mediums,” DeLuca said.

Jill Gleeson-Doherty came out of a two-year hiatus to contribute several paintings depicting tree roots to the show.

The show, which also features art from Jill Perry, Jill Elizabeth, Jill Santoro and Jill Brong, “kind of was a huge kick to get me back into it,” Gleeson-Doherty said. “It’s been fun.”

The Swersies have collaborated on a number of exhibits, some politically themed and one celebrating their 22nd wedding anniversary , also held at Dutot. Terry Fagan, the president of Dutot’s board, said he “did get a chuckle out of ” the Jill show idea when the Swersies approached him about it.

“They’re good people and we have a nice time with them, personally,” Fagan said. “It’s nice to kind of start the season like that.”

More from Trebor Maitin: Chess, 3D printing, Hamlet the hamster: Monroe libraries go beyond books

The Swersies also hired a local musician to provide a live backing track at the opening reception on Saturday. His name is not Jill, but Roy, and he has no plans to play music by anyone named Jill.

“I’m gonna check out the crowd and throw in some of my classics — read the room, as they say — and just kind of do it,” said the musician, Roy Ramos, a frequent collaborator of the Swersies who is notable for his vast collection of custom painted guitars.

Jack Swersie plans to have Ramos stationed outside the gallery, where there will also be food. He and many of the Jills interviewed said that the show would be like a “big party” attended by upwards of 100 people.

“We’re really not creating just an art show, we’re creating an event,” Jack Swersie said. “That’s how I approach all of these shows. I want it to be more than just art on the wall.”

If you go: JUST JILLS

When: Opening reception, 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, May 18; gallery open noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, May 19

Where: Antoine Dutot Museum & Gallery, 24 Main St., Delaware Water Gap

More information: 570-476-4240, dutotmuseum.org

Trebor Maitin is a freelance reporter based in Stroudsburg and a student at Lafayette College, where he is the managing editor of the student newspaper.

This article originally appeared on Pocono Record: Art exhibit at Dutot in Delaware Water Gap features eight local artists named Jill