My husband and I feel so blessed to have this wonderful organization in our community. We have enjoyed everything from theater productions, to a wide variety of art exhibits, to Santa visits that thrill our grandchildren, to chamber music, chowder cookoffs with whales and jazz, to dinners for six, to an interesting take on New Year's Eve from a New York perspective, to ballet and bell ringers, to poetry and song teaching lessons of the Christmas season, and stimulating speaker series that cause one to think and ponder. Keep up the great work Gualala Arts...you are truly a gem!
Gualala Arts, Inc. began in 1961, dedicated to promoting public interest and participation in the arts, and it has been achieving this mission for the past 50 years! Gualala Arts provides quality programs and services to an area of rural northern California coast spanning approx. 50 miles (in two counties) with a population of approximately 6000 residents. Throughout the years, local residents raised thousands to match funds with a philanthropic donor to secure land for a physical art center, then further funds and countless volunteers to insure its creation. Gualala Arts operates with a small paid staff, and hundreds of volunteers to keep the over 1500 annual activities operating, including all manner of art exhibits, a variety of performing arts, classes and workshops, lectures, a Summer Youth Art Program and rentals to other groups and organizations. Gualala Arts puts on five major annual festivals that bring visitors to the area from all over the country. Of particular note are the 50th annual Art in the Redwoods, the 19th Annual Artists’ Studio Discovery Tour and the 9th Annual Whale & Jazz Festival. The thousands of folks who attend these events augment the economy of the several rural communities served by the Arts Center. However, like many arts organizations, even with a healthy membership of 800, the overhead to keep the doors open on this exquisite facility exceeds the annual income. This fact may soon affect Gualala Arts Center’s ability to remain open seven days a week and provide all of the programs it does at present, as well as curtail plans to expand and enhance the facility. At present, it is striving to raise funds to provide an elevator to create ease of access for the entire community to all three levels of the Center.