Amherst arts scene is alive and well

By TONY MAROULIS

Published on June 22, 2007

Amherst boasts seven partners of Museums10. The Amherst Cinema Arts Center is averaging over 2,000 moviegoers weekly. Amherst has a number of art galleries - A3, the Burnett Gallery, the Fiber Arts Center, the Nacul Center Gallery, and the soon-to-open wunderarts - and businesses like Rao's, Judies, and the Souper Bowl that offer their walls to artists. Student galleries are on the Amherst, Hampshire and UMass campuses. Innovative, exciting and educational, the Fine Arts Center welcomes over 60,000 to its programs yearly.

The arts (and culture) scene is alive and well in town.

If you were an out-of-towner in search of some culture and read the article on the closing of the R. Michelson Gallery (Bulletin, June 8), you might decide to go elsewhere. In fact, if you're an Amherst resident who still holds on to the old bias that Noho has more, you might not visit what we have to offer here either. But as project coordinator for Museums10, and co-owner of wunderarts (coming soon), I'm pretty bullish about our town's art scene and its economic impact, and here are some reasons why you should be too.

1. Seven M10 museums. Our backyard is full of cultural gems and at least 100,000 people yearly are visiting. Museums10 and their partners are getting the word out in a number of local and regional media outlets. The museums are helping attract thousands of cultural tourists as we market our area as a worthy alternative to the big cities and the Berkshires. And our surveys have shown that visitors get hungry after a stroll through museum galleries. In fact, they often eat in local restaurants and they buy in local shops. And because museums aren't static, they reward cultural tourists with new exhibitions and deeper experiences with the art, books, and history they come in contact with and get them to come back for more. And that means more eats, drinks and sales for surrounding businesses.

2. The Amherst Cinema Arts Center has galvanized downtown. The success of the cinema center and the downtown development on Amity Street has changed Amherst's profile. While "the city across the river has a more vibrant arts scene,” according to the Bulletin article, for some time now the unthinkable has been happening: People from Northampton are coming to Amherst. It's true. And on a regular basis. For the food and the shopping, too. One of the main catalysts has been our nonprofit cinema center and the businesses that have popped up in town because of its draw.

3. And now that the engine is revving, and cultural tourists are arriving, new galleries - like wunderarts (our opening show will feature Amherst residents Dean Brown and Derek Noble, by the way) - might find their way into town. In fact, contradicting an assessment that art has not played a major role in the economic development of downtown, new businesses are springing up because of the changing perception of the town's cultural profile. You just need to look at the activity in the formerly quiet Dickinson Historic District on Main Street to know that there is some excitement about the town's prospects.

It may be that geography is responsible for the skewed perception of the Amherst art scene. Our cultural attractions go from the downtown, into the campuses, past Sweetser Park, and in North and South Amherst. We're not a town concentrated into one busy thoroughfare that looks packed on the weekends. We have a lot of little pockets of activity scattered throughout our 27.7 square miles. So if you're doing the Amherst Art Walk, you'll have to take a few (thousand) more steps than you would in Northampton. And then you'll be really hungry, so you have to eat. And on your way to satisfy your hunger for food and art, you might have to buy that gift or that book that you saw in the store window.