Members of the not-for-profit St. Charles Arts Council are excited about officially having a home they can call their own beginning Feb. 1 which they say will allow it to expand their offerings to the community.
An 1,100-square-foot site at 121 N. Second St., Suite H, in St. Charles will be the new home base for the group for board meetings, workshops, exhibits, artist talks and more. Finding a permanent spot for the group is something that officials said has been on the radar for years.
“Our programming will expand exponentially this year, as we now have space for workshops, gallery exhibits and artist talks,” said St. Charles Arts Council Executive Director Kathryn Hill in a press release from the group. “We will also have information about local arts organizations so that visitors can see all that St. Charles has to offer in the name of the arts.”
Hill said the group was launched back in 2010 and “was looking for space even back then.”
“The group wanted to have an arts center,” she said on Tuesday. “I started my job five years ago and at the very first strategic planning meeting the top priority was to within five years be inside a physical space. We’ve talked about it and looked at different spaces and had different conversations with people and this one finally came open. We had the money in the bank to take our foot off first base and head for second. We’ve very excited about it.”
Hill said throughout her tenure with the group she “has worked from home” and now she and others will work “out of a building that has four different businesses within the building and we got one of the suites.”
“We are renting this and have signed a lease for three years because, even if we don’t bring any money in from our fundraisers, we’ll be OK to pay the rent and we think it’s worth a shot,” Hill said. “We think in three years we’ll have a really good sense of the programming that it would take if we choose to purchase, but for now, we’re just going to rent and give it a three-year trial.”
Fundraisers for the group, Hill said, include three events a year “that help pay for programming and staffing.”
“We will continue with those and hopefully we are also going to offer workshops and classes here and there for people and keep up with our fundraisers,” she said. “We don’t charge for people to come and see art shows but, in all honesty, we’re pretty good at the fundraisers.”
Those efforts include one known as The Art of the Dessert where Hill said a local five-star restaurant hosts a group of up to 130 people for an event “that is sold out every year.”
“We have local bakers and also celebrity bakers and we have dessert night the Monday night before Thanksgiving and people come in and spend $50 per person and people bid on the desserts,” she said. “It’s just a full, well received event. We also have an event – a week-long plein air painting festival – where we had 40 artists come in from all over the United States and we raised money there with sponsorships and participation fees.”
A total of 40 of the current 90 members of the St. Charles Arts Council are artists, she said.
Hill said furnishing the new suite has begun including “buying some chairs from a local church.”
“We will raise money and then we’re going to have benches as this will be an art gallery and we want to have it look like a real gallery,” Hill said.
A grand opening for the new space will be held from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 23, officials said. The public is invited to come see the new location at the event.
The grand opening will also feature an art exhibit by St. Charles Arts Council members.
“This is the perfect way for us to highlight the incredible talent that lives right here in our community,” Hill said.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
