Arc’s Main Street Gallery

To Close After Exhibition

By LIBBY CUDMORE • HOMETOWN ONEONTA

Edition of Friday, Dec. 19, 2014

The Main View Gallery & Studio’s seventh annual Holiday Gift Show’s opening Friday, Dec. 5, was also a farewell.

Arc Otsego’s Center for Self Expression, which operates the Main View, is losing the $80,000 “Option for People Through Services” grant that has funded the gallery’s operating budget since 2007.

“Ours is one of the last to close,” said Pat Knuth, Arc Otsego’s assistant executive director. “But we have a lot to figure out.”

Foremost, whether to cut staff and supplies. “The question is how we keep the essence of this program alive,” said Knuth. “We all agree it’s too valuable to give up.”

The Center for Self-Expression opened in July 2007 as a space for adults with developmental and other disabilities to be more active and creative through the arts.

“A traditional day program focuses on daily living activities, individual care and maybe some physical therapy,” she Knuth. “We wanted to help individuals become more engaged in the community.”

The attached Main View Gallery hosted annual art shows. In 2013, it published a book of poetry, “Suddenly There Were Leaves,” through Bright Hill Press. Artists were provided with materials and, if their works sold, they split the proceeds.

With the funding cut, the gallery itself may be the first to go. “We’re going to have to cut back on the quality of the materials and reduce the size of the gallery,” said Knuth. “And we’re going to have to go to straight commissions if the artists want to sell anything.”

She stressed, however, that the program will continue to focus on arts-related creative activity. “We will now be supporting individuals to express their creativity for self-growth and creative expression as opposed to creativity for the purpose of selling their work.”