Past presidents, board members return to revamp Butler Art Center
Last summer, several past presidents of the Associated Artists of Butler County returned to the Butler Art Center & Gallery. A group of them formed new goals for the agency, which mainly focus on growing its visibility and participation.
Paul Scanlon is one of those past presidents. He said it was last summer that the organization got a new board, new volunteers and new advisers, calling it “kind of a new place.”
Scanlon also said attending some events the gallery hosted over the past several months demonstrated to him that people may be interested in doing activities at the Butler Art Center — they just don’t know what it has to offer.
“The Souper Bowls, we had so many people say they didn't even know we existed,” Scanlon said about the event the center collaborated on with the Butler Community Meal Ministry. “Visibility, that's part of the reason we're trying to engage with more community organizations, because they have their own followers.”
In addition to revamping its board of directors, the Butler Art Center & Gallery took another big step in hiring a full-time employee this year, an asset that Scanlon and fellow past-President Steve Harding said has been absent for “years and years.” That employee is Jessie Beatty, whom Scanlon and Harding said is an administrative assistant. Beatty will perform many duties for the art center, including keeping its website updated and creating graphics and marketing materials.
But the hiring of an employee and the push to get more involved in community events are just two steps the art center is taking. Scanlon said the Associated Artists plan to introduce resident artist galleries in some of the gap areas of the center, provide on-demand classes to people looking to craft and offer larger payouts to its best in show artists at shows.
With a current overabundance of artist resources online, Scanlon, Harding and the other regrouped Associated Artists of Butler County say they need to bring the art center up to a finer standard.
“Every time we have a thing going on, we seem to have the people come in and support the thing,” Harding said. “Our push lately is to not just be the art center, but to be the fine arts center. Terry (Hagen) is really pushing to have real stuff here from New York and have people pull that together.”
Scanlon said the gallery and the Associated Artists of Butler County were relatively stable until 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic left most people confined to their homes and art shows moved online.
Some of the other figures returning to involvement with the Butler Art Center & Gallery are Terry Hagen and Marilyn Tynan.
Tynan commented that membership with the group has never recovered, which Scanlon said is why leaders of the organization are focusing on getting more people into the center.
As Scanlon mentioned, Souper Bowls was good for showcasing the art center as a venue. It also recently housed a chili cook-off, which was part of Butler’s annual Carved in Ice festival, and a skateboard art show by the Butler Area Skatepark Authority. Scanlon said each of the events brought dozens of people — hundreds in the case of the chili cook-off — into the gallery, some for the first time.
The artist leaders plan to capitalize on visitors to the center through offering new initiatives.
“We want to have a work space here. So we're going to create a couple artist work spaces, nominal rent. But again, it's getting artists in here on a regular basis,” Scanlon said. “The idea was some of the really good artists we have, give them a free gallery for a couple weeks and help them sell their stuff.”
The Associated Artists are already experimenting with a resident artist, Ed Davis, who has sketches installed in the first side gallery at the center. There are a few other wall gaps in the gallery where other resident artists can display their work. Scanlon said the spaces might become a reward for artists who perform well in the gallery shows.
This, combined with higher artist payouts through an increased push for donations, should help drive more artists to the Butler Art Center.
“They're going to be more incentivized to participate,” Scanlon said of prospective art submissions.
The work space element of the art center could also help promote its galleries. The art center houses wood turning equipment in one of its side rooms and a portrait group regularly meets to sketch human subjects.
Tynan reiterated the fact that the art center should have offerings that people can’t find anywhere else nearby.
“What we have to do is to be better than the internet,” Tynan said. “Offer as much or more than they can’t get from the internet because I think that's taking a lot away from us.”
Harding said the art center is also pushing to recruit more volunteers, who can staff the gallery during events and its open hours and could come up with and lead classes of their own in a medium of their choice.
Scanlon said the updated website for the art center was one way to keep people abreast of activities there. However, his dream is to install an eye-catching sign on the building, one that offers a worthy welcome to people driving onto Butler’s Main Street.
“This is the entrance to Butler. When people stop at that stoplight, we want them to know that we're here,” Scanlon said. “Neon signage, we want something that grabs people's attention.”
Coming up at the Butler Art Center & Gallery is the Spring Show & Sale, which opens with a reception May 22, and will be in place at the gallery through June 5. For more information on the gallery and the Associated Artists of Butler County, visit butlerartcenterandgallery.org.
