Building Bridges…
… Building Communities
The St. Catharines and Area Arts Council (“The Arts Council”) has been working steadily since its inception in 2001 to fulfill our institutional belief that arts and culture have a fundamental social value and are essential to building lively communities where people want to live, work and play.
It is clear that arts and culture have a fundamental economic value and are essential to Niagara’s sustainable future. The Arts Council is dedicated to building bridges between the arts and cultural community and area business leaders.
What is the Arts Council?
The journey began with a group of passionate individuals coming together to address a discovered need for an umbrella group to represent arts and culture in St. Catharines and surrounding area. With funding assistance from all levels of government through annual grants as well as invaluable community support, the organization was able to grow, acquire office space, increase accessibility of its services, add full-time staff positions and put a public face to the community.
Since 2004 we’ve been proud to call 31 James Street, in the historic Stokes Seeds building, our home. With the generous help of Charter Construction, renovations were undertaken to form the existing Charter House, home of the St. Catharines and Area Arts Council.
The membership of the Arts Council represents all genres of art practitioners and arts supporters. Its membership is drawn from Niagara communities at large.
What does the Arts Council do?
As an arts-service organization , the Arts Council not only to brings awareness of the value of the arts to the broader community, but also is called on to aid in partnerships and to provide insight in cultural planning at both the municipal and regional levels of government.
The Arts Council is a proud partner in regional artistic showcases such as The Wednesday Salon: Food For Thought, In The Soil: Niagara`s Homegrown Arts Festival, Art City and James Street Night of Art. These events not only showcase local art talents of all genres (performing, visual, written and new media), but also offer a method of increased exposure and business revenues for event locations and area business. These events create a cultural community dynamic which benefits both artists and business.
What is needed?
The residents of the Niagara Region are fortunate to have prominent professional and amateur visual artists, playwrights, performers, authors who call our towns and cities home. However, there still lies a large gap between the arts community and the business community – bridges need to be built and relationships and partnerships nurtured for mutual benefit. The business community needs the arts community, and vice versa. Bridging this gap will synergistically create a better, brighter, more prosperous tomorrow.
Why the Arts Council?
The Arts Council is uniquely situated to build bridges between the business and artistic community. The Arts Council represents, supports and provides opportunities for all genres of arts and culture in Niagara (performing, visual, written, new media) at all levels of achievement (professional, semi-professional and amateur). By supporting the Arts Council, you will be supporting all genres of arts and culture in Niagara and all levels of achievement.