Spotlight on Business

BCFAF: A Future in Fine Art Through Scholarships
by Vina Curtis, Promotion Director and
Cindy Bandy, Historian of Boulder City Art Guild

This year the Boulder City Art Guild celebrates its 25th Annual Fine Arts Festival. The festival provides an attractive venue for local artists and artists from the surrounding Southwestern states to display their work. Proceeds from the festival provide scholarships for students studying for a fine arts degree. Boulder City Art Guild awards six scholarships of $1,000 each to qualifying students every year. For the past five years graduating students make room for other students to enter the program. In all, $6,000 a year is awarded. Another $1,000 is donated to the Arts Center in ABC Park each year. This is for Mini Scholarships in increments of $25 for children and senior citizens who cannot afford the Art Center fees.

Guild members are pleased that this successful venture makes it possible to assist artists and future artists in reaching their goals. The Guild’s first festival was in 1986. It was named the First Clark County Art Show and came to Boulder City’s Bicentennial Park with 78 artists showing their original work. Monies derived from the show went to the B.C. Cultural Center Building Fund. Later, the show’s name was changed to B.C. Fine Arts Festival and artists outside Clark County were invited to participate. Through the years the number of artist has grown to over 130.

The Boulder City Art Guild has far surpassed the early beginnings of the organization which began in May 1973 as the Senior Art Guild with 20 members meeting in homes just to paint. In 1975 they set up a Circulating Gallery which the Guild still maintains in various locations around Boulder City. The group reorganized in 1975-1976 as the Boulder City Art Guild, and increased the membership to 50 members. Grace Community Church provided a site for their first art show in 1977. Dick Blair donated his realty office building to the Guild for a gallery. The guild then partnered with the B.C. Cultural Center Board (later to become the B.C. Arts Council) to place the building on their land located at 1495 Nevada Highway. The Gallery remained there until 1994 when both the Arts Council and the Guild moved to the Boulder Dam Hotel.

Currently, the Guild is busy preparing for the Boulder City Fine Arts Festival which will be in Bicentennial Park on April 17 and 18 from 10 am to 5 pm both days.