Club 321 at Mechanics Hall
FEATURING JUNIPER RAG ARTISTS ONCE A MONTH AT CLUB 321 MUSICAL PERFORMANCES
Join us for our 3rd season bringing art to Mechanics Hall. We have hosted over 20 artists to date at Club 321.
One of the benefits of exhibiting your work with Juniper Rag locally, is to be invited to show your work at Mechanic’s Hall’s Club 321 performances. We have shown many curated artists to date, like Robin Reynolds, Frank Armstrong, DaNice Marshall, Marc Blackmer, Kathryn Downey Miller, Scott Bollard, Karen Reid, Patti Kelly, John Pagano, Tim Gannon, Michelle May, Rose Mamakos and others.
If you are a Juniper Rag artist and you would like to show work at a Club 321 performance in Worcester, MA, please contact us to learn more. There is a vetting process in place for these shows with logistical considerations. We welcome all artists living in driving distance to exhibit work with us at this prestigious and nationally historic venue.
Solo Artists have a chance to welcome the crowd and speak for up to 3 minutes to the audience about your work before the show begins.
Every show is in collaboration with Mechanics Hall and sponsored by WICN, who announces our artists with a beautifully scripted plug from Jen Antkowiak, Trustee, Chair of the Modern Mechanics Guild and Award-Winning Voice Actor. Each exhibition has a brew tasting by Redemption Rock Brewing.
Criteria for Art Selections for CLUB 321:
Juniper Rag artists have the opportunity to show their work at Club 321 at historical Mechanics Hall.
While we aim to give this opportunity to artist that have been curated into Juniper Rag, we do make exceptions to local artists. Selection is not guaranteed.
All artists must email us at the link below, so we don’t miss messages coming through on social media.
Artists show larger pieces on easels. Smallest side must be over 20 inches. There are 10 easels.
Artist may also have the opportunity to speak to the audience about their work for 2-3 minutes, in most cases depending on schedules.
Artists who are booked in advance also get plugged by name in association with Juniper Rag on WICN radio.
It is a great opportunity to introduce your work to a whole new audience and get some air time!
Artists must arrive by 5:15 at the serve entrance in the back of Mechanics Hall and be ready for doors at 6:15.
The shows go until 9 pm and you have 1/2 hour to pack at the end.
Packing strategically saves time on set-up and take-down.
UPCOMING 2024 - 2025 SEASON SCHEDULE
Artists TBA
September 26
October 10
November 14
December 12
February 20
March 13
April 3
May 8
June 26
THE THRILL OF MECHANICS HALL
Every month a jazz, blues or rock band performs for the listening and dancing pleasure of regulars and vistors alike. Experiences like the music clubs in the timeless tradition of Paris or New York. Whether you are just a jazz-lover, like to dance, or are a professional musician, the exceptional music in the room will conjure thoughts of the Cotton Club and the Savoy in the glory days, as it fills with guests. This legendary building is the perfect place to experience the incredible music of Worcester and beyond.
Join us at CLUB 321 at Mechanics Hall, up the double staircase to Washburn Hall.
Music selections will be performed in Washburn Hall, which will be transformed into an underground jazzy club. Jazz music could be enjoyed anywhere in the world, but hearing it live in the hallowed walls of Mechanics Hall is special. The lights are low, cocktails are poured, and the music transports you and comes alive. This historic venue can illuminate that sense of magic — with excellent acoustics, historic credibility, timeless elegance and signature cocktails, plus the ghosts of its musical past. Look at the portraits that line the walls as you enter, this venue is indeed hallowed ground. The masterful acoustics of Mechanics Hall would attract orchestras, bands, and renowned performers. Creative culture brought richness to the community of Worcester then and now. Carriages and horses from surrounding towns filled the hotels and theaters of the city every weekend with visitors like John Singer Sargeant and Emily Dickinson.
Mechanics Hall is making history. with three new portraits in their Great Hall gallery, “Mechanics Hall has undergone an inspirational transformation. Concluding a 5-year project, the newly commissioned portraits honor the lives and legacies of four 19th century Black Americans who impacted social reform within Worcester and beyond. The vibrant portraits of William & Martha Brown, Frederick Douglass, and Sojourner Truth extend and enrich the narrative told by the Great Hall portraits.”
WHAT WE MEAN BY HALLOWED HALLS
Some perspective can really open your mind about how deep and rich the roots of history are at Mechanics Hall. Rich in the essence of change and equity, that we are still fighting for, our American history, Mechanics Hall was the center of incredible happenings in the mid-nineteenth century, in the 1840s, Frederick Douglass, took the stage. The Mechanics founded the hall in a mission for Abolition, Women’s Rights, and Temperance. Sojourner Truth, one of the two most impactful Black women of the 19th century (the other being Harriet Tubman) began her 30-year speaking career in Worcester at the first National Women’s Rights Convention in 1850. Susan B. Anthony, Abbey Kelly Foster and others established the first Women’s Rights Convention and spoke at Mechanics Hall. Worcester seriously had it going on. Literary greats like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and a list of hundreds of other greats have been orators there.
The great musical talents of Chick Corea, Clancy Brothers, Chieftans, Bèla Fleck & Abigail Washburn, Yo-Yo Ma, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Collins, Mel Torme, Itzak Perlman, among hundreds of other orchestras, opera and others like Vienna Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, National Orchestra of China. Presidents like William Jefferson Clinton, Gerald Ford, Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, one of the finest orators in American history, have all graced the halls. Learn more here.
Mechanics Hall and 90.5FM WICN bring contemporary sounds for adult audiences in an atmosphere that combines jazz club and coffee house!
Club 321 offers exceptional, mostly acoustic, music once a month on Thursdays, delivering a vibe that is both artful and warm.
Meet up with your friends or step up your date night!
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Tickets: Available in Advance | or at The Door
Audience: 21+
Cash bar and light refreshments available
“Juniper Rag Magazine is such a welcome addition to print media focusing on artists, designers and their practices. It exceeded my expectations in quality, layout and content and is a magazine that I will gladly include as a part of my portfolio and display as a staple on my coffee table. I was honored to be included in the inaugural issue welcoming the opportunity to have my work beautifully and permanently displayed in print. As an artist who is fortunate enough to show in many galleries, the paintings shown in Juniper Rag will be forever on display and always accessible to a new and much wider audience, including potential collectors. I paint for myself initially, but ultimately want others to enjoy what I have created and lose themselves in the work’s color, line and sense of place. Juniper Rag offers the unique opportunity to ever expand my reach and increase the opportunity to excite and engage the art loving public.”
— Robin Reynolds