Easton's art community is rallying around Moyer, who used to live in the city.
Danny Moyer, an art teacher and artist, was injured in a wreck on his way home to Pen Argyl during Superstorm Sandy.
Whitehall-Coplay School District art teacher and local artist Danny Moyer was on his way home to Pen Argyl in the wake of Superstorm Sandy when he was in a car crash that has kept him hospitalized, according to friend Anthony Marraccini.
But an appreciative arts community has rallied around him.
Details of the Oct. 30 crash were unavailable Friday. He remained in the intensive critical care unit at St. Luke’s University Hospital in Fountain Hill, a nursing supervisor said. His wife, Suzanne, declined to comment.
“He wants art to be fun, not too serious, not uptight,” said Marraccini, of Connexions. His works are often abstract and ambiguous. They focus on aesthetic appeal rather than specific imagery and are designed so viewers can give them any meaning they’d like, his friend said Friday.
Moyer’s work is a fixture at Connexions and is regularly on display in the Downtown gallery’s window. Moyer was to be the featured artist for November and was supposed to speak at the gallery Nov. 4. Marraccini said he’ll be discounting the cost of Moyer’s abstract pieces to help Moyer and his family raise money.
“We don’t know what to do,” Marraccini said. “We’re all just trying to find ways to help.”
Typically, a gallery such as Connexions offers artists a 60-40 split: Moyer would receive 60 percent of sale proceeds, and Connexions would keep the balance. However, to encourage people to buy the pieces, Marraccini is reducing the prices of Moyer's work by 20 percent and taking out the gallery’s share.
“Since it’s his, it’s more poignant in that regard,” Marraccini said.
Danny Moyer, a teacher who was injured in a wreck during Superstorm Sandy, has a wife and two daughters.
Moyer is the organizer of the “We” project, a community art project begun in 2010 that allows both professional and amateur artists to display artwork side-by-side at Connexions.
It’s Moyer’s love of community art that so inspired students in his art classes, according to Lauren Geldon and Janelle Zack, both former students of his.
“He was my art teacher through middle school and also high school, and he acted as a huge mentor in my college career, leading me in the direction of doing art as a major for college,” Geldon said.
Now, pursuing two majors at Kutztown University, Geldon hopes to use art as a tool in social work.
She said she, too, plans to host a fundraiser for Moyer but that Moyer’s wife wants to wait until he has recovered so he can attend the event.
Zack is collecting money using the website GiveForward.com, at giveforward.com/themoyerfoundation. The money will be given to his family for medical expenses and family support, Zack said.
“He has two young daughters, and his wife's with him all the time in the hospital,” Zack said. “It’s definitely a struggle to also take care of two young girls.”
Lorie Hackett, Whitehall-Coplay schools assistant to the superintendent, called Moyer part of the "Whitehall family."
"He's a very devoted and well-liked and wonderful teacher," Hackett said Friday. Of the events students are planning for him, she said the school will do whatever the family wishes.
"We're hopeful that his recovery is going to move along and that he might even be involved in some of these things later," Hackett said.
Staff member Precious Petty contributed to this report.