1. Wonderful gallery space providing the City of Concord with original art work that rivals the best galleries in San Francisco. Our artists are all juried into the gallery, ensuring a highly quality of art work. One of our artists is always present in the gallery to answer questions. Many of our artists either teach nationally or have won awards in national/international shows.
2. Art Gallery as a resource for visiting students. Teachers in the area frequently bring their classes to the gallery. In addition, high school art teachers give worksheets to their students that require them to come to the gallery to complete their assignments.
3. Guest artists who work in mediums other than watercolor. The addition of other mediums makes the gallery more interesting. This provides recognition for established and emerging artists from the area. In addition, we recently hosted a retrospective of the works of James Enemark, who was one of the art teachers at Clayton Valley High School. We also have musicians at our receptions. For the last 2 Holiday receptions, we have had the Girls Choir from Clayton Valley High School come and sing Christmas carols for our guests.
4. Quarterly receptions and one Holiday reception that are well-attended by the people of Concord, as well as nearby cities.
5. Training facility for "Outreach Art Teachers" that go to schools to do demonstrations. Held the third week of June, CWA also provides art materials for these demonstrations and practice supplies for the students.
6. Workshop space for outstanding national and international art teachers. These workshops are available to the public.
7. Interview of the artists on local TV.
Phone costs, credit card costs and the holiday party have been paid for by the artists. Food, paper products for the reception, postcards, and postage have been reimbursed by the Visual Arts Benefactors along with the insurance for the building and a security service. Building and plumbing repairs, garbage pick-up is done by the City of Concord. Building janitorial services, show changes including receiving and hanging of shows, take down of shows, bookkeeping, touch up painting, reception preparation and cleanup, booking of musicians, gallery staffing are all done by volunteer artists.
Recently, the City of Concord signed an agreement with CWA to provide funding to keep Gallery Concord open in one-year increments, up to a total of 5 years. We are excited about the new funding source and are making several changes to make the Gallery a more viable and interesting place to visit and shop for art. Gallery Concord will be hosting the CWA workshops, increasing the number using the gallery. In addition, the Gallery will be collaborating with the Concord Library in showing a special exhibit of student art.
Denise Oyama Miller (510) 651-8593 deniseoyamamiller@comcast.net
Cindy Sullivan (510) 651-5685 mjsully@ix.netcom.com
1. Joe Romano, Clayton resident is a freelance writer for hire. He can be reached at:jromano01@yahoo.com
2. Nilda Rego – Days Gone By, Contra Costa Times
3. Concord Historical Society
4. Gail Zavala CWA member