Cultural centers fill a vital role in communities, often serving multiple functions as performance halls, art galleries, historical repositories, gathering places, and educational resources. They help to build essential connections and strengthen the social fabric. A series that profiles essential cultural hubs, prioritizing centers in rural and underserved areas, examines how they uniquely serve and reflect their communities. These stories will produce a broad cultural snapshot of the state, provide a window into Oregon’s many distinct communities, and help to bridge the urban/rural divide.
KEY SPONSORS
Braemar Charitable Trust
Hampton Family Foundation of Oregon Community Foundation
Oregon Arts Commission
The Reser Family Foundation
The Roundhouse Foundation
The Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts will provide science, technology, engineering, and math students the opportunity to receive a unique understanding of the world through the arts.
The weekly McMinnville gathering, like others around the state, draws participants who say they are both energized and calmed by the practice. “The primitive nature of the drum in the story of humanity,” says one drummer.
For 16 years, the center has provided cultural programs – everything from ceramics to concerts to yoga – out of the historic Delake School, but it hasn’t been easy.
Next spring’s opening will make Corvallis a destination for world-class arts performances, exhibits, and education.
In the historic Willamette Valley town made famous by the movie “Stand by Me,” a volunteer-run gallery provides a year-round showcase for members, as well as classes and workshops for children and adults.
The library has weathered budget and staff cuts, an unwieldy inventory, and the pandemic to deliver everything from books to workshops, games, and homeless outreach to the Yamhill County community of 2,200.
The popular library system is using its bond-funded resources to expand its free arts and cultural opportunities at neighborhood libraries, with the programs offered determined by the diverse communities themselves.
The nonprofit supports the Yachats Celtic Music Festival, happening Nov. 10-12, an art quilt show, a banner project, and the Yachats Arts Guild, among others.
Highlights from the festival’s 14th season included the documentaries “Kim’s Video” and “Finding Groovopolis” and the narrative features “Free Time” and “The Secret Art of Human Flight.”
What began as a way for student athletes to de-stress has grown to serve people dealing with trying situations, from caregivers to the seriously ill.
The center, with The Refindery shop and Repair Cafe, has a mission of helping people “step away from the garbage.”
Access and opportunity are at the heart of the mission of Pendleton Center for the Arts. The mission is especially fitting given that the center’s brick-and-mortar location was originally a Carnegie library.
The Toledo Art Walk over Labor Day weekend epitomizes the city’s arts-centric focus, built largely on the legacy of painter Michael Gibbons.
The Portland Art Museum’s redesigned, glass-ensconced addition, due to open in summer 2025, will make viewing easier and could be a boon to an ailing downtown.
This cultural hub in Pendleton, Oregon celebrates the past, present, and future of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. It is also one of the state’s five Oregon Trail Interpretative centers.
A new Cultural Center and Museum will expand the tribe’s outreach, which includes classes in the Siletz Dee-ni language, two pow-wows, and the Run to the Rogue relay.
“The Skin of Our Teeth” opens next week at the 94-year-old community theater, which is adding new voices to its repertoire.
An illuminating exhibit on the life of Black pioneer Letitia Carson helps the Corvallis Museum broaden its perspective on the history of Oregon and Benton County.
The pandemic gave the 53-year-old coastal center opportunities to “look at things in fresh ways,” including youth programs, residencies, and Indigenous fellowships.
After a four-month construction shutdown, the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education reopens with new shows, a new gallery, and a celebratory street fair.
Retiring Portland Institute for Contemporary Art executive director Victoria Frey and her successor, Reuben Roqueñi, discuss the venerable avant-garde arts institution’s coming transformation.
For decades, Gary Harvey built fences and secretly made art in Wasco County. A first-ever showing of his work is also an art center’s fresh start.
A neighborhood print studio highlights the social aspect of printmaking and provides members 24-hour access to a variety of presses, some more than 100 years old.
Since 1986, the all-volunteer gallery has worked to exchange ideas and opportunities for artists in all mediums and cultures.
Nestled beside Forest Park, the former Salvation Army White Shield Center is set to become a whole new cultural campus, devoted to classes, lectures and artist residencies.
For 73 years, the gallery and studio space has offered amateurs and professionals a place to show their work and to share skills and support.
The 35-year-old building, along with the nearby Visual Arts Center, has helped transform the Nye Beach neighborhood from “poverty gulch” into an arts community.
The chateau-style building with breathtaking views has to overcome issues with accessibility and identity. The Feb. 19 Crab Krack is an opportunity to visit.
Clatsop Community College’s Royal Nebeker Art Gallery, named for the artist and teacher, is a hub for students and showcase for exhibits that draw visitors from throughout the Northwest.
After years of searching for a new home, Northwest Children’s Theater is on the brink of a spring move to expansive digs in the heart of downtown Portland.
Jennifer Rabin finds more than anticipated on a visit to the exhibition “A Call for Light” at the makerspace Past Lives in industrial Southeast Portland.
Near Willamina, Joe Robinson has created a haven for ceramicists working with the wood-fired kiln. “When you stand next to a fire,” he says, “you feel like you belong.”
The combination of studios and gallery in the old Bend Iron Works is a communal space for artists to share their creative process with the public.
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Ashland New Plays Festival wrap up seasons of bold plays that grapple with modern issues and life.
The Soul Restoration Center, begun by Darrell Grant and carried forward by Dr. S. Renee Mitchell, revives a key cultural space for Black Portlanders.
The museum, a thriving cultural hub on the Oregon coast, is more than ever asking its audience to consider how the past shapes the future.
From its Walters Arts Center to its Civic Center, a surprise Lee Kelly sculpture and more, Portland’s booming western neighbor offers a surprise for the eyes.
Lloyd and Myrtle Hoffman, who offered classes and opened their home to friends and strangers, left as their legacy a gathering place for art lovers.
Two potters have turned an abandoned middle school into a center for art classes serving adults and Reedsport School District students.
The Museum at Warm Springs is confronting a number of challenges but director Elizabeth Woody is full of ideas, strategies, and solutions.
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