Letter from President / CEO
To Our Dedicated Supporters:
In this new digital format of our Annual Report, I’m proud to share the progress we made in our 2015-2016 year of programming. It was progress enabled by generous support from you, hard work by our talented staff, and nonstop engagement from patrons and partners.
Thank You.
People like you were so involved, that we spent much of our year trying to keep up with your demands for our programs. It required us to host more classes in off site spaces, like Hathaway’s Hideway, and to add capacity to our jewelry and metalsmithing studio through a complete renovate and to add a new digital arts studio (the Roseann Hebeler Brown ARTLab).
Additionally, the increasing popularity of our summer art camps motivated us to launch the series even earlier (now February 1) and the increasing requests by artists to exhibit in our galleries motivated us to reduce the length of exhibitions in order to add more of them in a year.
Amidst this responsiveness to our community, we proactively reinvigorated our commitment to access by bringing the arts to public spaces. We began hosting an annual outdoor arts festival in downtown Ann Arbor (POP-X), we accepted a major contract from the City of Ann Arbor to install art along Stadium Boulevard, and we even added a new large mural to our own building (created by Neutral Zone teens) that comments on issues of identity and immigration.
The results of our many shifts and investments have been tremendous:
– The average Art Center class has a waitlist (245 student-artists were unfortunately turned away due to a lack of studio space), we offered a record 43% more summer classes, and annual class enrollment increased from 1,233 to 2,115
– We saw an 80% increase in Facebook followers and 295% increase in Instagram followers
– And special fundraisers like Artini, the POP-X Collector’s Preview, and Vine & Dine all sold out
The long-term sustainability of this activity depends on us being able provide expanded space for you to create and explore art. We are working on this diligently.
In the meantime, please know that our continued success has also been a result of your ongoing encouragement and support. As you look through this web-based report, you’ll see even more images, data, and details from our year that we hope excite you about our past and future.
Sincerely,
Marie