Westport Arts Scene, Part 4: Artists Collective Arises

This is the final story in a 4-part series about the splintering of the Westport Arts Center, into what is now MoCA\CT and the Artists Collective of Westport. (Click on Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.) 

Our “06880” culture correspondent Robin Moyer Chung writes:

In 1996, Westport’s population was booming. Officials needed another school.

Despite a signed lease, and a promise from the schools superintendent that the Westport Arts Center would have the Greens Farms Elementary School building through 1999, he broke the lease and demanded they leave.

Greens Farms School, during its Westport Arts Center days — as portrayed by an artist with a studio there.

Greens Farms Elementary had been WAC’s home for almost 20 years.

Despite this, parents — many of them new to Westport — were upset that artists were taking up school space that could belong to their offspring.

Parents and other residents deemed the artists “frivolous,” and chastised WAC artists and board members.

The opponents did not know that the WAC had poured perhaps a million dollars — from studio rentals, dues, donations and ticket receipts — into repairs and maintenance.

Artur Holde Hall — an exhibit and performing arts space, in the former Greens Farms School gymnasium.

Greens Farms Elementary School was built in 1925. In 1991 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Any work needed had to preserve its integrity. Such work was costly.

Opponents failed to acknowledge the WAC’s unique contribution to the community. It brought together national award-winning painters, musicians from international symphonies, well-known cartoonists, illustrators from major publications, an art instructor from the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, and emerging talent.

One artist calls the decision to take back the school “a cultural crime.”

Compo Shopping Center offered WAC administrators a small office above Gold’s Delicatessen.

Artists, staff and board members took advantage of any exhibit space they could, including Earthplace and school auditoriums.

In 2002, they moved into their own space: a gallery on Riverside Avenue.

Westport Arts Center, on Riverside Avenue.

They remained there until 2019, when Mo\CA CT opened on Newtown Turnpike (see Parts 1 and 2). 

Once again, many artists had no home.

But not all.

In a prescient move in 2014, 5 artists and WAC artistic director Helen Klisser During created the Artists Collective of Westport. The goal was to retain the WAC’s values and mission.

Four years later — amid rumors of the WAC evolving into MoCA — two Artists Collective members incorporated the organization as a 501(c)3 not-for-profit.

Their aim was to be “a more collegial group” — member-driven, with “renewed respect for local artists.”

Today there are roughly 150 ACW members. Painters, sculptors, photographers and other artists in Fairfield County inspire and assist each other in their creative process.

Artists Collective of Westport member Nina Bentley with her work, at one of the group’s quarterly shows. (Photo/Dan Woog)

A founding artist says that while some members enjoy renown and commercial achievement, the collective’s true measure of success is “how many of our members donate their time and talents to the community, and how much wall space we give to local artists who might not have any other opportunities.”

The Artists Collective partners with the Westport Country Playhouse. They host pop-up exhibits, special events and monthly meetings at the Lucille Lortel Barn.

One member says the Collective “opened the door to this whole new group of people that I wouldn’t have had the chance to know.”

The Artists Collective of Westport also opens doors for area art-lovers to meet, enjoy — and buy the works of — local working artists.

Last month — nearly a decade after the Artists Collective was formed, and Mo\CA CT opened its doors —  Mo\CA’s outgoing and incoming executive directors, Pamela Hovland and Robin Jaffee Frank, attended the opening reception for the Collective’s holiday exhibit.

It was the first time a MoCA director had attended an Artists Collective exhibit.

Though the “divorce” was difficult, and my interviews with artists from those periods dug up still-raw emotions, both sides agree that MoCA\CT and the Artists Collective of Westport have made the town’s arts community more vibrant.

That is the power of a collective passion.

(“06880” regularly covers the Westport arts scene, in all its forms. We highlight the history of our town too. If you enjoy stories like these, please click here to support our work. Thank you!)