On March 18, Magenta Theater hosted a preview presentation of Portland Opera's 2018 season. It was a wonderful way to introduce opera to the uninitiated and to share with those who already love opera. We took our 4-year-old granddaughter and she loved it. I was so pleased also to see so many young people in [...]
In trying to understand what’s possible, we at Arts of Clark County have been looking at what other cities have done, and we’ve met and talked with arts leaders there. We’ve revisited the past—the jumbled mix of fleeting efforts and false starts that has been our community’s history with the arts. And we’ve come away [...]
Not an arts center—an art center. We need both in our community. An economically viable visual art center that fulfills the need for exhibition space, studios, and classrooms has been a topic of conversation in Vancouver for decades. Past attempts and plans often patched a visual art component on to a performing arts facility. This [...]
Across the country, cities of Vancouver's size (or much smaller), close to larger urban centers, are opening performing arts and visual arts centers. Satellite cities like Lone Tree and Parker outside of Denver, now each have their own performing arts centers successfully cultivating audiences in their local communities. And rather than competing with existing venues, [...]
In March 2012, we held the first Clark County Arts and Culture Summit, a gathering of arts organizations, business leaders, local representatives, and individuals wanting to see a greater focus on the arts in our community. Now, five years later, we are planning our second summit on September 23 in the Artillery Building at the [...]
In last month’s issue of ARTS brief, we talked about a tremendous opportunity we have in Vancouver to build our arts infrastructure, meeting real needs, fueling our economy and bolstering our community’s identity. The key is connecting the right people and resources to make something happen. We took a small step in that direction February [...]