The Arts Council of Pendleton Inc

The Arts Council of Pendleton provides opportunities for creative expression and community connection through experiences, education, and advocacy in the arts. The council does this primarily in three areas: arts education, arts and crafts exhibits, and arts economic development.The education programing is the cornerstone of the organization. We offer free and low-cost art and music classes for youth, teens, and adults year-round. In addition, we host school, church, and community groups in our facility and provide services off-site at schools and public spaces or events. Our building has many dedicated spaces for artmaking while other spaces perform double-duty hosting a range of art and music classes and presentations.The exhibit program supports both emerging and established artists from across the region and around the country. We enjoy allowing our exhibits to inform our education programing; often the featured artists work inspires class offerings. We host 14-16 unique exhibits each year, engaging with a wide range of mediums and viewpoints. The annual Open Regional Exhibit engages almost 100 artists each year, many showing their work in public for the first time.To encourage art economic development, we engage more than 120 artists all year round for our Fine Craft Gallery. This provides income for the artists, as well as a platform to learn about production, packaging, and marketing. We mentor artists on an ongoing basis, helping with product development, materials procurement, and more. Artists gain skills which allow them to expand their markets out to other galleries and shops.