Dear art lovers,
April 20th marks the beginning of Give Grandly and we’re asking for your support in helping us grow and thrive as Grant County’s art ambassadors.
What is Give Grandly?
Give Grandly is an annual fundraising event for local nonprofits. The month-long event brings over 60 nonprofits together for this collaborative fundraising effort. The highlight of the campaign is Giving Day, the in-person festival where nonprofits get to connect directly with donors and the communities they serve, allowing them to showcase the work they do in our community. This year Giving Day is May 4th (9 am – 2 pm) at Main Street Plaza in Silver City, NM.
What is SCAA?
The Silver City Art Association (SCAA) represents independent artists, working studios, galleries, and museums in Silver City and greater Grant County, New Mexico. We support those artists and art businesses by providing an online presence and providing professional development workshops, but most importantly by promoting our area as an art tourism destination.
It’s well-documented that art tourism has tremendous positive economic impacts on communities in New Mexico and is especially important for rural areas. When art-loving visitors choose our vibrant art scene as their destination, they not only buy artwork but they also spend money in hotels, restaurants, and other businesses.
SCAA produces popular art events throughout the year that attract visitors, increase quality of life, and enrich local economic health. Our First Friday Art Walks, the Red Dot Studio Tour, Weekend at the Galleries, the Independent Artist Showcase, and art market pop-ups draw visitors as well as locals. We also produce the extremely popular Red Dot Art Guide, the comprehensive guide to our art scene that highlights the high-quality artwork our members create as well as our events that connect art lovers with our artists.
The Town of Silver City recognizes this value by underwriting most of the printing and design costs of the Red Dot Art Guide and other promotional materials. Creation and distribution throughout our region, however, falls on volunteer labor.
In fact, all of our efforts fall on volunteers and it takes an extraordinary amount of time and energy to produce the events and publications that create awareness of our art scene and bring art loving visitors to our off-the-beaten-path town.
Why support SCAA?
Our volunteers and members drive our organization. But the reality is that we have operational and promotional costs in accomplishing our goals. Those costs are well above the funds generated through the membership fees we keep at accessible levels for our members.
Right now, beyond those routine costs, we need to expand our online presence. We’ve made great strides in our social media presence in the last year but our website needs a complete redesign to stay relevant. That will require hiring a professional designer to create an engaging website that draws and keeps art lovers exploring our art-based businesses.
In addition, SCAA needs to establish a physical presence as the art ambassador for our area. Currently SCAA does not have a physical work space, much less space to store equipment, promotional materials, and archival materials that document the creative history of our area. That physical presence is crucial to SCAA reaching the next level of promoting our area as an art destination.
Your support today will allow us to create that physical presence in partnership with the Grant County Art Guild, a long established area non-profit that works cooperatively with other art organizations in order to stretch resources and increase the effectiveness of all.
The Guild is currently preparing to open their new exhibit and workshop space called The Studio and they are willing to rent a portion of that space to SCAA. Having that space will allow the SCAA to overcome the operational challenges we’ve faced by not having a physical location and enable us to connect with visitors and members to promote the arts in a deeper way than we've been able to until now.
We’re very excited about collaborating with The Guild on many levels. Bringing these two prominent art organizations together under one roof not only makes good business sense, it will foster a collaborative spirit amongst our artists and further unite our art community. And that collective energy is magnetic and inspiring to the visitors who fuel our art economy.
On behalf of the SCAA board, I thank you for understanding that supporting the arts isn’t a luxury—it’s vital to the economy of rural areas like ours. When our artists and art businesses are thriving, so is Grant County.
Donate via the Give Grandly portal through May 20th or stop by our booth during Giving Day on May 4th.
Thank you!
Val Weston, SCAA President
