Donations and memberships are starting to come in. Keep ‘em coming! Sponsors of cancelled events are opting to defer their funds until next year rather than taking refunds. Many of our Outdoor Art Show artists have offered to defer their booth fees as well. We thank you so much for your generosity.

These actions let all of the staff, volunteers, our Board, our members and our artists know how much you care. You are standing with us to ensure the financial stability of our 70+ year center for creativity and inspiration.

While the Art Center’s doors are shut, by no means does that mean we are going away.

What it means is that Reanna, our Academy director, is working from home giving refunds for cancelled classes, and creating a production line with her kids to stuff and mail membership renewal letters. She’s also finalizing the Summer class schedule, and Art Bash, our summer kid’s camp.

Nancy who runs our Outreach program, is using social media as an online platform to share art and creative prompts to inspire the artist in all of us.

Adrienne, our marketing and exhibits director, is also working behind the scenes from home, to get all of the information into our mailers, and onto our website in order for us to be prepared to get all of the class information to you in a timely manner. We usually start getting calls soon—asking when the information will be available. While we cannot predict the future (pretty much everything is closed “until further notice), we can be prepared for when we are all allowed to congregate without fear. We want the Art Center to be ready to go when that happens.

We are happy to announce that Adrienne has created an online platform to view exhibits and even a Shop page featuring artwork for sale. We hope to have even more up by next week!

We still have our late April workshops on the schedule, as well as the last half of Spring term classes. Some might say this is naive. But we all know that, like the larger metropolitan areas, complete lock down could last longer than we anticipated. The Art Center is prepared to regroup and shift our plans. For now, we just want to offer a glimmer of hope for those who ache to come to the Art Center and create.

Everyone is working for you, planning our programs.

Here’s a fun fact! This year we received a grant this year from the Alabama State Council on the Arts to offer “Creative Cargo” take-home supply kits for many of our children’s classes. This is so that students can continue to make art using the skills they learned without purchasing additional supplies, which can be cost prohibitive for many families. We have our fingers crossed that when the tide turns, we’ll be ready.

It’s so inspiring to see artists sharing their instructional videos online and in social media. Everyone is uplifting each other in creativity. Let us know how we can help you during this time and watch for notices from us with updates.

Keep creating. Keep giving and keep the faith,

Bryant Whelan

Executive Director

Eastern Shore Art Center