Art in the time of COVID
July 18, 2020

Hello out there. We’re still here! We know it’s been a long time and we just want to say how much we miss all of you. And, we’re excited to (slowly) restart the engines of Art Center East to see what we can contribute to this strange new world we all find ourselves in.

Some quick updates:

Three cheers for the ACE Board of Directors who have kept things moving in the background while staff is on furlough! It has been a challenging task and they have stayed the course. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

A big round of applause for Board President (and funding wizard), Nancy Knowles, who acquired a PPP loan that will allow ACE to bring staff back on August 3. She is also proud to announce that ACE has received a $10,000 grant from the Union Pacific Foundation Community Ties Giving Program. With this generous funding, ACE will leverage our existing network of artists, members, and partners to start rebuilding the income streams that help ACE and our community thrive.

Hoots and hollers for new plumbing! You may or may not recall that as ACE was shutting down at the start of the COVID crisis, we also had a (completely coincidental) plumbing crisis that left our building without water for over a month. A foundation in California that wishes to remain anonymous appeared at that same moment to offer us funding for an immediate need – and goodness did we have one. Because of their generous contribution, our building has running water and working toilets again. Somehow ‘thank you’ doesn’t seem emphatic enough, but from the bottoms of our hearts, THANK YOU!

Dance a little jig for board members Nathan Prouty and Laura Hudson for steering our lovely little Gift Gallery into the digital realm. You can now shop for one-of-a-kind, handmade art ONLINE! We’ll keep adding items, so check back often! All purchases create much-needed revenue to local artists and ACE.

Shop the online gift gallery here!

Finally, drum roll please! We plan to reopen ACE in early September! We don’t quite know what this will look like yet, but we intend to have some version of an ACE visitor experience ready to launch by September. Stay tuned, share your ideas, and keep the love coming. We need it!