The East Haven Arts Commission is calling local businesses and artists to beautify the town, encourage its development, and let everyone know what is on their creative minds this fall with new opportunities on the horizon.

The commission is coming off of a successful summer season with its theater program, which includes a youth production, The Spongebob Musical, from July 20 to 22, said commission member Robert Genzano. With high participation, the commission is looking to enter the upcoming season with confidence.

“We had over 70 participants and running crew, 11 paid staff, and based on the strength of that, we’re expanding on last year’s Fall Festival,” said Genzano.

The East Haven Fall Festival will take place at the Town Green on Saturday, Sept. 9, and the commission is currently accepting pieces as part of the festival’s art show. This year’s theme is What’s New Neighbor?

“Artists have their finger on the pulse of culture, so we want to see what you’ve produced recently,” said the commission on its website. “The commission welcomes submissions of artwork made by artists living in or originally from East Haven from the last 18 months. From across perspectives and materials, we want to see what your creativity has brought forth into our town over the last year and a half.”

Artists from East Haven or currently living in East Haven are welcome to send up to four 24x36 pieces for consideration and display at the festival, with submissions due by Sunday, Aug. 20.

“Our exhibition is meant to be a reflection of the diverse perspectives and approaches to art making in our community, so all media are acceptable for consideration,” said the commission.

Along with an additional showing at the festival, the commission is looking to hold its inaugural art trail along Main Street. They are currently accepting requests for participation from local businesses to run concurrently with the art show.

“We are linking up with the Chamber of Commerce, and, once again, we’re linking up with the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development,” said Genzano.

As a way to encourage economic development, the trail is an opportunity for businesses to attract customers to their doors and demonstrate support for the arts in town—”all just by putting a poster in your window,” according to the commission.

The Economic Development Commission has identified beautification as a viable effort to make East Haven a physically attractive location for new commerce, especially along Main Street.

Genzano said the popularity of the scarecrow contest during last year’s fall season gave the commission the confidence to hold a similar family-friendly presentation for this year.

“The success that we had with the scarecrows…on the Green, it started off with a few, we ended up with close to probably 40 scarecrows,” he said. So we’re like, ‘Hey, I got an idea. Let’s, let’s expand that walk up Main Street as an art trail.’ Not only do you come down with your grandkids to see the really cool, interesting scarecrows that the businesses have sponsored, but now you continue to walk up Main Street on an art trail, and you see all these easels in front of [East Haven] Public Television.”

Business owners in town are welcome to participate by placing original artwork in their windows, with materials provided by the commission, including easels and panels. The town group will also support the communications side, promoting the trail and local participation by businesses on social media.

But the art show and trail presentations make up one part of a longer-reaching goal for the commission. Genzano said the second part is to collect all creative expressions of local artists and businesses and place them in a “pop-up art museum,” where original pieces will be displayed to make a vacant storefront look more appealing while celebrating East Haven’s native creatives.

“We’re going to be looking to do that in the months of December [and] January. We’re going to try and get one of the vacant stores in East Haven,” said Genzano.

Genzano said the commission is in the process of drafting a grant proposal for the arts department of the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development to monetarily support the upcoming presentations, including the “pop-up art museum.”

“What was displayed in the Fall Festival—because it’s a one-day display, we can then take those two art forms, and hopefully, we’re trying to develop this idea of a pop-up art museum.”

Those who choose to participate in the art trail will receive an “art passport,” which will be stamped by the commission as a sign of having viewed a business’s piece, another way to increase foot traffic to them. At the end of the season, the hits will be tallied to see how many “hits” each establishment got, said Genzano. A lottery with prizes will also be given to participants, including all-day passes to an art museum of a family’s choice in New York City, with transportation and lunch expenses paid.

It makes up what Genzano called “this new journey of the arts commission.”

For more information, visit www.easthavenarts.com/home.