AVA looking to integrate with Center for the Arts

The Alliance for the Varied Arts (AVA) and the Cache Valley Center for the Arts (CVCA) have formed a committee to explore integrating the AVA’s program support functions into CVCA. The goal is to better serve the artists and audiences of Cache Valley, reduce overhead, achieve economies of scale, reduce confusion and streamline the way arts programs are provided to the citizens of Cache Valley.The Alliance for the Varied Arts has been an integral part of the arts programming in the Bullen Center and the Thatcher-Young Mansion, spaces owned by the City of Logan and managed and operated by the Cache Valley Center for the Arts, for the past eighteen years. During that time the AVA has leased space from the CVCA, and the two administrative offices have evolved independently, providing separate, though related, arts services and programs and pursing similar missions. The Alliance for the Varied Arts offers classes in ceramics, drawing and painting, creative writing, music, and youth Shakespeare. Irish dance classes are available through a partnership with An Daire Irish Dance and two independent nonprofit organizations that started as AVA programs—Valley Dance Ensemble and Unicorn Theatre—continue to have close ties to the AVA and provide classes in modern dance, African dance, creative movement and drama. The AVA also coordinates the popular Children’s Summer Art Camp, the quarterly downtown Gallery Walks and many other artistic activities throughout Cache Valley as well as helping with Art on the Lawn and the Summerfest plein air competition.”In these changing economic times, it has become more critical than ever that nonprofit organizations approach their missions creatively and make the best use of the limited resources they have available,” says Alliance for the Varied Arts Executive Director Wendi Hassan. “As we looked at what we do we discovered that some of our programs, like children that have grown up, no longer need the level of support we have been offering them. We were already operating on a very thin margin, and the economic downturn has become an opportunity to seriously reexamine our projects, our capacity, and even our structure as an independent organization. In the end it made sense to seek a strategic alliance with the organization that manages the space we use and shares a similar mission.””Part of our mission is to foster quality fine arts experiences and facilitate appropriate uses of the Thatcher-Young Mansion and the Bullen Center,” notes Wally Bloss, Executive Director of the Cache Valley Center for the Arts. “Integrating many of the AVA’s programs into CVCA will allow better coordination wth the programs using the arts center. Our goal, ultimately, is to find mechanisms that will continue to support the arts programs in the center for the arts that serve over 100,000 people a year.” The changes the committee will discuss are administrative, rather than programmatic, and the immediate impact on many of the programs is desired to be minimal.The mission of the Cache Valley Center for the Arts is to bring cultural enrichment to the people of the extended Cache Valley community by presenting, exhibiting, teaching and fostering quality fine arts experiences and facilitating other appropriate uses of the Ellen Eccles Theatre, Thatcher-Young Mansion and Bullen Center that will encourage widespread community access, tourism and economic development.The mission of the Alliance for the Varied Arts is to promote the arts by providing art education, organizing artistic events, and supporting local artists.

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