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Settling back in a vintage loveseat and lit by the sun coming through her main street front window, Mugavero — who replaced her given name Cathy Jo with just the initials —- says she opened her gallery in February 1986, in an old bank building in Allentown — hence the gallery’s name.

It was after that location started to get attention and her business grew that she opened another branch in Bordentown in 1997.

Seeing the history-rich town attracting visitors to its restaurants and shops, she concentrated her business downtown, on Farnsworth Avenue, in 2002, seeing her gallery as a destination within a larger destination.

“I sell only regional fine arts,” she says about her enterprise that was originally housed in a larger and more expensive location across the street. “We pride ourselves on getting people familiar with original art and that you can live with this product and that you can pass it on. I selected everything in here.”

She then turns reflective and says, “I wanted to be a gallerist that could actually support living, working artists and their estates.”

Noting that a few artists have been with her since the start, she says it is a

“partnership” that has seen “marriages, deaths, floods. We’ve gone through life together.”

The daughter of a tool and die maker father and homemaker mother, the selfdescribed “100 percent Sicilian” says art was part of her early life in Butler, Morris County.

“While my family was blue collar, we had original art in our house, we were Italian. I remember my aunt and uncle, he worked in the city, he’d buy original art. I remember when he bought an owl sculpture. I was fascinated. So I had some strong connection. It was the creation of building something. I was fascinated with building. My family were masons. (And) I always had a strong affinity and connection to the earth.”

Her personal connections and high school art classes fed her interest in pursuing an arts-related career – but there was a dilemma.

“My parents weren’t sure of an arts degree, but I didn’t want to be an educator and was always good with theory,” she says of her decision to study art therapy at what was then Trenton State College (today it is The College of New Jersey).

Another reason was her self-assessment of her own artistry. Although she participated in exhibits in the Princeton area, she concluded, “I’m an okay artist.

I’m a solid ‘B’ artist.”

After graduating in 1981, studying in England, and getting her footing as an intern at Skillman Training School for Boys, Mugavero says her entry into the art therapy field was thwarted when federal program support funds were slashed and hiring stagnated.

A stint with a temp agency led her to Dow Jones in South Brunswick, where she says, “I realized I wasn’t going to get a therapist job and developed a relationship (with the company). I got promoted and ended in credit and collections for the ad agencies for the Wall Street Journal; I would go and collect money.” * * *

Eventually she wanted to mix her art background with her new found business experience and started thinking of a gallery. “I looked for space and called a former colleague at Trenton State. She was a realtor and brought me to the bank building.”

For artists, she had to look no further than those with whom she had exhibited or met along the way: Robert Sakson, Wendall Brooks, Marge Chavooshian, N.J. Devico, de Neve and others.

She says within a few years the gallery was attracting attention for the caliber work of work shown and within five years strengthened with the engagement of the nationally known Arkansas-born artist Joseph Williams Dawley. He had moved to Cranford.

“Joseph William Dawley was my career-changer. Other artists wanted to be where Dawley was. (He) put my gallery in a different league; people had already known of him. He was represented in Washington D.C. Time Off (the Princeton Packet weekly magazine) gave us the cover,” says Mugavero.

The result was that serious collectors from Princeton and Newark took notice of the gallery and its offerings.

Mugavero says she feels fortunate to attract artists and wants to do well for them.

Additionally, she notes, “I don’t want an artist I can’t promote or market well. Artists should be creating and doing all they can do. I should be marketing them. I can boast about them. That is my job.”

Her job has also been to keep the gallery alive and productive.

“For the first years of the gallery I had a lot of learning to do. I had a lot of tough experiences,” she says. “We have been through recessions, and 9/11 was a frightful and scary time.”

Interestingly enough, she says, during those times, people wanted to ‘come home’ to traditional art and supported the artists and gallery.

Covid was another challenge. “You realize you’re a veteran,” she says about maintaining a business during a pandemic. “Young entrepreneurs were coming to me and looking as if they were hit by a truck. I said, ‘There is no handbook (to get through the problem). We’ll fight and figure it out. And in the future, when the next thing happens, (young entrepreneurs) will come to you.’”

She posits that such problems stimulate “a creative side that comes to you, like protecting a child. The Downtown Bordentown Association was an example: we all pulled together, business, city and city residents.”

The DBA reference also reflects the gallerist’s involvement with the community. She is a member of the DBA, Bordentown City zoning board, and Bordentown Arts, a nonprofit founded by her husband, Leon Stanley, whom she met when he visited her gallery.

Mugavero then turns her thoughts to patrons. “In the 1980s and ’90s, (purchasing art) was about unlimited prints. But I have seen a trend where people want to own and build their own fine arts collection.”

The allure is that a person can own “a work that cannot be reproduced. You’re the only one in the world who owns this piece of art,” and “when a piece of art goes home with someone, there is excitement about it” and the artist.

She also notes that buying art from working artists does not have to be expensive. She says she started her own collection of art for $75 and offers lowprice work to help others to do the same.

Looking forward again, Mugavero talks about finding new ways to connect potential art collectors with art and artists.

One is an art dinner and private showings for 25 people at a local inn. “I will bring in still lifes, and we’ll have an artsinspired meal, that’s an experience. It isn’t a traditional art opening. I’m trying to develop experiences where people are exposed to art.”

Now putting her business and self in perspective, Mugavero says, “This is a luxury item of sorts. When the economy falters, people will need milk and bread, they are not going to need this at that time. You have to be in (this business) for the long haul. Some of it is up to the gods. But it is a partnership and a relationship with the artist.

“I am a very grateful person. And I am grateful people are investing in us. They’re part of the reason we are able to continue.”

Then, while gazing at a painting-filled gallery wall, she sums it all up with the simple statement: “To live with art is the only way to live.” lanes in September working the register, cleaning, getting balls out of the gutter and glamorous things like that.

Artful Deposit, 142 Farnsworth Ave., Bordentown. Hours: Wednesday and Thursday, 1 to 6 p.m.; Friday, 1 to 8 p.m.; Saturday, 1 to 6 p.m.; and Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. Phone: (609) 298-6970. Web: artfuldeposit.com.

Just being in that bowling environment seems to rub off on him.

“It’s really been helping me be more happy in bowling and getting to know more people very well,” he said. “And I get to compete every single week. Everybody likes me there, and they like my bowling game also.”

When he gets the chance to throw some practice games, with no pressure on having to produce a high score, Bassett likes to tinker on his game.

“I want to work on some tips to make sure that my ball is reacting to what it should do,” he said. “It doesn’t matter my score. I throw 50 miles an hour, a lot of the other kids throw 60 miles an hour. I’m like ‘Why that fast?’ I throw 50 miles an hour and I get 10 straight back.”

Jones likes the fact that Bassett is an old-school bowler who goes against the norm of the modern game.

“He’s just a different type of bowler,” Jones said. “He’s the old style, onehanded bowler; whereas 90 percent of the rest of the team is all bowling two handed. He’s much more able to control his ball when you get later into matches; when the oil patterns are starting to get pushed all over the place. He’s still able to hold a steady line, whereas the other guys bowling two-handed, it gets to the end and they don’t know where the ball is going. They roll it and hope.”

Bassett has always been anxious to better himself, and was never afraid to ask for help. As a freshman, he would go to his father and other team parents for advice. He also tapped into sophomore Sean Horner, one of the team’s better performers, for advice.

“Sean’s actually one of my best friends,” Bassett said. “He taught me a few things about how to be yourself, stay in control of your game. A lot of the parents I talked to gave me pointers. It helped.”

Bassett bowled just 13 games in ninth grade and averaged 153.

“He definitely had potential,” Jones said. “He was willing to listen. He would listen to anybody that came along. He’s a willing listener and willing to do what somebody suggests to see how it works.”

See BOWLING, Page 15