SPRINGFIELD — Next to the front door of the 116-year-old downtown building that houses Emerald Art Center, a plaque notes its history as the former home of Gerlach’s Drug Store. The building is more famous, however, for the mural on the west wall: the colorful, larger-than-life “Official Simpsons Mural” that was painted in collaboration with The Simpsons creator Matt Groening in 2014. 

The scene — Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie enjoying a day in the woods — is the No. 1 tourist spot in this Willamette Valley city of approximately 61,000, according to Guy Weese, president of the Emerald Art Center Board. 

The center’s exterior may be popular with tourists, but the inside was designed with the local art community in mind. It contains multiple rooms and galleries, a gift shop with work mostly by members, a studio where workshops and classes are held, including a youth summer camp, and an art library and information room where you’ll encounter The Simpsons once more, in three-dimensional form. The life-sized replica of the family, sitting on a couch, was a prop created as promotional material for The Simpsons Movie, released in 2007. 

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At first, Weese wasn’t sure a replica of the famous cartoon family belonged in the art center, but he acknowledges that people love to have their picture taken sitting on the yellow couch next to Homer. On the wall above the figures is a plaque with a declaration by Groening stating that despite claims by other Springfields around the country, Springfield, Oregon, is “the real Springfield.”

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The nonprofit Emerald Art Center began in 1957 as the Emerald Valley Art Association, when a group of artists and art lovers set out to start an art league. The group bought its first building, on A Street, in 1974; when it outgrew that space in the 1990s, it purchased its current building at 500 Main St. The center operates on dues paid by its roughly 150 members, grants, an annual fundraiser, which is coming up Oct. 24, and by renting out its top floor to tenants. 

People can sign up as either associate or participating members, said Weese, a photographer who has been a member for more than 20 years. The participating membership is less expensive and most popular, but it requires five hours a month of volunteer work. It’s not difficult finding things to do, as the center has a list of 15 “Participation Opportunities,” including Gallery Guide, Art Walk Committee, Springfield Mayor’s Art Show Committee, Fund Development, Website Helper, and Hanging Crew.

Ariel Rahima, one of the center’s four staff members, said that most members enjoy putting in hours as Gallery Guides. The center also has an art display at Eugene Airport, which requires travel to neighboring Eugene for hanging. Weese said in jest, “Eugene is nothing but West Springfield.” 

Ten months of the year, the center’s ground-floor galleries are reserved for members, who can submit one or two artworks each month. In October, the Springfield Mayor’s Art Show invites members and nonmembers alike to submit work. Artists of all ages are considered for a handful of awards, sponsored by local agencies or organizations, including the Mayor’s Choice Award ($500) and the Springfield Chamber of Commerce Award ($100).

Weese is one of the organizers of the Annual Springfield Mayor’s Revue, the center’s yearly fundraiser, which will be held Friday, Oct. 24, at the Wildish Community Theater. Entertainment will be provided by The Nowhere Band, a 16-piece ensemble from Portland that plays music from The Beatles.Tickets are available here.

During a visit to the Emerald Art Center over the last weekend of September, I watched  volunteers in action. The center switches shows each month, and volunteer work is a big part of that effort. On Saturday, art was coming off the walls, volunteers were running intake tables in the front rooms, and new artwork was being staged along the floor for hanging. 

An “organized chaos,” Rahima called it.

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Guest artist Robyn Drake was on the mezzanine taking down her show, Untamed and Indomitable. The day before, she had led a workshop on alla prima oil painting, teaching the oil and wax technique she uses in her art. 

Besides offering classes and gallery space, the center serves as a base for Springfield’s 2^nd Friday Artwalks. In July and August, its Youth Art Camp offers classes for kids and teens, with nearly half the campers receiving scholarships that cover 50 percent of tuition, said youth camp coordinator Kristy Eden, a credentialed art teacher with 12 years of experience teaching art to young people. 

Seeking advice from the board about which artists to hire for camp classes, she chose many of the instructors who had previously been with the program, including Uyen-Thi Nguyen, who taught teens how to draw people, Jen Hernandez, who introduced them to the “Multiverse of Manga,” and Will Paradis, who led 9- through 12-year-olds in an “Acrylic Adventure.” 

Nguyen, who lives in Cottage Grove, was the art camp’s previous coordinator, and is an active member of the Eugene area’s community art scene. On her website, she talks about portraiture, identifying it as a unique form of art. “I once saw a Van Gogh self-portrait in Amsterdam,” she said. “It was alive. It was like I could see him there, a piece of him. Portrait painting is an art unto itself.” 

At the end of this year’s summer camp, students displayed their work in the art center,  sharing what they’d made with friends and family while gaining experience as exhibiting artists. 

While folks were dropping off work last month for the mayor’s show, two artists, mother and son, were quietly working further back in the building, removing their artwork from a wall they rented in September as part of the celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Jessica Zapata and Diego Sebastián Hernández Zapata shared the exhibition space, which the center rents to anyone who wants a whole gallery wall for their own. Diego’s work was a collection of photographs taken on a recent trip to Mexico depicting everyday life on the streets in Mexico City. Jessica’s side of the wall displayed embroidered works done by Latin American women living in Springfield and Eugene. 

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Titled Memories of My Homeland III, the collection was organized by Eugene ArteLatino, Comunidad y Herencia Cultural, and Rose Oakman, who works with community engagement at Eugene’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Jessica led the project, asking participants to visualize the homes they left, then depict those places with colored thread. Those who didn’t know how to embroider were taught. The resulting exhibit was a powerful reminder of the immigrant experience: a complex yet beautiful combination of hope and loss.  

Memories of My Homeland is an ongoing project, bringing people together by encouraging them to turn their memories into art. It shows that art not only reflects community but can also help create it. That’s what’s happening at Emerald Art Center: It supports its members’ art, while creating a community by inviting people to participate.