By JOE MEYER

Uptown will transform into a sprawling art gallery April 20, as artists set up in locations across the historic business district for the 2024 Westerville Art Hop.

Twenty-three artists will fan out across Uptown, setting up easels in locations ranging from antique shops and bookstores, to restaurants and wine retailers. All will be creating new original artwork during the 1-5 p.m. Hop, as well as offering works from their existing portfolios for sale.

But no big transformation will take place before or after the Art Hop at 7 W. Main St. There in the historic Holmes Hotel building, as it’s been since 2002, you will find the David Myers Art Studio & Gallery.

‘The Joye of Spring’

The Myers Gallery will host a special show for the Art Hop, The Joye of Spring, David Myers said.

Featuring works from more than 30 studio artists, from ages 8 to into their 90s, the show is Myers’ annual tribute to his former student Joye Tilton, who died in 2015. She would have been 100 this year.

The charge to artists participating in the show, Myers said, is to create art reflecting joy. The exhibit fills a room in the studio stretching along the first block of West Main Street. One of the works displayed is by Tilton herself.

Art as vehicle to empower, give voice

Myers is a highly accomplished artist, well known for his acrylic paintings, as well as an art instructor and trained art therapist.

His vibrant paintings of athletes from all kinds of sports hang in museums and halls of fame across the country, and clients from the Navy’s Blue Angels to Paramount and Warner Bros. studios have commissioned his paintings.

He continues to accept commissioned work, but his focus more often these days is on teaching and helping others through art. That teaching and reaching, using art as the vehicle, has been a hallmark of his 40-year career as an artist.

“I’ve always instructed and mentored,” he said, dating to working with homeless youth in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. “That is certainly my lift – using art, one-on-one, to empower others – to believe in them, sometimes before they believe in themselves.”

Case in point: Joye Tilton. She was 81 when Myers met her. She had suffered a stroke and was wheelchair-bound. But she was taking up painting – and finding a new purpose.

Myers gave her instruction weekly for 10 years. She became a prolific painter. “Art was her thing,” he said. “She discovered her lane in her 80s.”

Before a final stroke took her in 2015, Tilton’s daughters helped Myers get Tilton in her wheelchair into his gallery. In the room where Westerville Art Hop 2024 visitors can catch the The Joy of Spring show this April 20, Tilton looked around to find the gallery full of her own works.

Myers has held the Joye of Spring show in her honor each year since her passing, featuring work by artists at his studio. This year will be the 10th.

Ohio born, longtime Westerville resident

Born in Massillon, Myers received a bachelor’s in fine arts-painting from Miami University in 1982, then headed to Chicago, where he received a master’s in organizational behavior from Northwestern in 1985. Nearly a decade later, he was off to Los Angeles, to study for another master’s, in art therapy, from California State, Los Angeles.

He ran studios in Chicago, San Diego and Los Angeles before he and his wife Silvia made Westerville their home in 2002.

The couple raised two children here, who themselves now work in arts-related fields. Son Massillon is in media with the NCAA, working at its headquarters in Indianapolis. Daughter Cherish is a performing artist in New York City. Both graduated from Westerville South.

Myers said he loves the Uptown location of his studio/gallery in the historic Holmes Hotel building. “It’s a great building. I just really enjoy Uptown. It’s a great place to be.”

He also enjoys the Uptown events that bring new crowds in to visit. As the founder of the Arts Council of Westerville (in 2003), he’s excited about the upcoming Art Hop. In addition to The Joye of Art show, Myers Studio artist Kathleen Norris – the retired principal of St. Paul School in Westerville – will set up on site to create a new painting.

“If it’s nice, Kathy will be painting on the porch,” Myers said, inviting old friends and first-time visitors alike to stop by the David Myers Art Studio & Gallery April 20.

Full list of locations and artists for the 2024 Westerville Art Hop

It will be hard to not encounter an artist Uptown during the 2024 Art Hop. Here’s a full list of the locations that will be hosting artists, and the artists who set up at the locations to create works, on April 20:

A Gal Named Cinda Lou, 20 N. State St. – Joanna Hammer

A Twist On Olives, 44 N. State St. – Lisa Edwards

Amish Originals Furniture Company, 38 N. State St. – Khadija Adil

Asterisk Supper Club, 14 N. State St. – Bryce Collins

Birdie Books, 74-C N. State St. – Hannah Maltry

Blend Candle Company, 16 E. Main St. – Lee Ann Lander

Blue Turtle at Uptown on Main, 64 E. Main St. – Elyse McCabe

Deja Vu Resale Boutique, 11 N. State St. – Joy Selby Cain

Edwin Loy Home, 46 N. State St. – Judy Ruehrmund

Fattey Beer, 79 S. State St. – Richard McKinley III

Fusian, 79 S. State St. – Kathryn Smithson

Good Vibes Winery, 2 S. State St. – Mary Van Meter

Java Central Coffee Roasters, 20-B S. State St. – Don Wilkiins

Kurt McCurdy-Howard Hanna HER, 42 N. State St. – Richard Leavy

Megan Lee Designs, 20-22 E. College Ave. – Kathy Rausch

Meza Wine Shop, 48 N. State St. – Evan Williams

My Cousin’s Cottage, 16 E. College Ave. – Jessica Schiering

David Myers Art Studio & Gallery, 7 W. Main St., Kathleen Norris

North High Brewing, 240 S. State St. – Lisa O’Connell

Pure Roots Boutiques, 18 N. State St. – Noelle Shearer

Stone & Sparrow Apparel, 34 N. State St. – Lindsay Ciulla

Westerville Antiques, 2 N. State St. – Sandra Brandt

Whit’s Frozen Custard, 46 N. State St. – Hilary Stone

CAPTIONS-Above: David Myers inside the David Myers Art Studio & Gallery, and the gallery’s 10th annual Joye of Art show that will be featured at the Westerville Art Hop April 20.

BELOW: Myers on the West Main Street porch of his gallery, where artist Kathleen Norris will work on a new original painting during the Hop – weather permitting.