The Andrew and Laura McCain Art Gallery 2015 Sheila Grant Project
Expanding upon the success of community arts programming, the ALMAG created “The River Art Centre & Studios”, a repurposed building on Main Street Florenceville. It became a functional artist studio space to facilitate creation, teaching, learning and collaboration. This infrastructure advance for the ALMAG has contributed to the vitality of the downtown core of Florenceville-Bristol and made possible mult-faceted programming that had not been possible with the space restrictions of the current gallery.
The funds from the Sheila grant were dedicated to the renovation of a donated building. The goal was to refurbish empty space to offer a functional studio space for artists and create an education centre for youth programming. The creation and furnishing of artist studios, installation of a shared art sink and preparation area, ventilation, security system and outdoor signage were high priorities of this project. SHMF was proud to join Valley Farms Ltd, the Town of Florenceville-Bristol and a dedicated team of local fundraisers to make River Art Centre & Studios a reality, with an official opening on August 14th, 2015.
We are so grateful to the Sheila Hugh MacKay Foundation for their support of this project. This funding has made it possible for our gallery to respond to the artistic needs we are seeing in our region. We now have a functional artist studio space to facilitate artists creation, teaching, learning and collaboration. It is quickly becoming the creative community cultural hub we were envisioning.
– Victoria Hutt
