Plenty in store for Arts Place
ST. MARYS — Wes Protsman, president of the Arts Place board, Auglaize/Mercer Center, spoke Tuesday night during the St. Marys Kiwanis meeting.
He provided members a look into what the center currently has going on and what he hopes to achieve in the future.
Protsman mentioned that the Auglaize/Mercer center is one of three Arts Place centers, with the other two in Indiana.
“We depend on Portland for back office services, they do accounting and help with fundraising because they employ a director of development,” he said. “We don’t have to plan the Arts in the Parks program, our biggest program, because Arts Place employs a visual arts director who does all the planning for all the locations in Ohio and Indiana for the entire program. It’s been a very successful program.”
In personnel news, Heather Dowell left her post as director last December and taking her place was Erin Weirrick.
Weirrick is a 2019 graduate of the University of Findlay and a Rockford native.
“She’s dug in and scheduled some Artworks classes for this spring,” said Protsman.
He added that the center had given up initially on holding the classes in the spring because of the pandemic but Weirrick stepped in and got the ball rolling.
Protsman said the center has completed fundraising for this year’s Arts in the Parks event and he was hopeful they wouldn’t have to limit class sizes like last year because of the pandemic.
He called the program “robust” and they will have a presence in St. Marys, New Bremen, Minster, Celina, Coldwater, St. Henry and Fort Recovery.
The center will be taking part in the Bunny Trail event this Saturday that’s being put on by the St. Marys Area Resource Team and the library.
“We endeavor to support anything in St. Marys,” said Protsman.
He announced that the next exhibit will feature photography from the Friends of Grand Lake Photography group and that will run from April 7 to May 12. Anybody interested in displaying art for that can contact the center for more information.
The center is offering a “Watercolors with Pat Rayman” class, which Protsman said is one of their most popular offerings.
“Many of the people in that class take that every time it’s offered,” he said.
“Acrylic Painting with Debby Gregory” is another upcoming class and that’s going to run from April 1 to May 6.
Protsman said the center is always trying to increase the number of classes it offers, adding that money raised in each community, goes back to that community.
“Our goal is to always increase the number of classes. We keep track of the money raised in each community, figure out how much is in the pot overall, figure out how much to pay teachers for hourly rate, then allocate teaching hours to the amount of money raised in each community and that determines the number of classes in that community,” he said. “All the money raised in the community comes back to the community. Money raised in Minster, means classes in Minster. It’s fair and it works very well.”
As far as the future of the center, Protsman said he would like to expand its offerings into more of Auglaize and Mercer County and they’re looking into during a mural project somewhere downtown.
“The original idea is the side of 207 E. Spring St. but there are other places that have been talked about, including along the canal,” he said. “We intend to get that done hopefully this summer of fall.”
Looking beyond just art classes, Protsman said they would like to begin offering music lessons in the future and they would need a bigger space to do that.
“207 E. Spring St. isn’t going to be big enough for us. We have one classroom that we could get maybe a dozen people in before the pandemic,” he said. “The other centers have very active music programs and I think there’s a need for music lessons as well. Of course we have great band instruction in schools, but it typically doesn’t include guitar or piano. There are folks that want their children to have lessons in both of those.”
Anyone that wants to donate to Arts Place can do so by visiting its website at ArtsLand.org.
Click on the “Give” button at the top, then choose general funds.
Write AMC on the second address line to make sure the donation goes to the Auglaize/Mercer center.