Mission Statement
It shall be the purpose of this Council to aid, encourage, advise and correlate all activities dedicated to the promotion of cultural arts in Artesia and neighboring communities.  Believing that a dynamic cultural atmosphere can be of economic as well as esthetic value to the area by attracting industry and appealing to prospective residents, this Arts Council is created to provide the neutral ground where the total program of the Visual and Performing Arts in the area can be integrated, given direction and expanded.

Our Growth
The Artesia Arts Council was started on April 3, 1975, with ten founding patrons and fifty-four charter members.  From the beginning, two major annuals events were Art in the Park and Missoula Children’s Theatre.  Art in the Park is a regional arts and crafts show held on the third Saturday of October at Central Park in downtown Artesia. Missoula Children’s Theatre is an acting experience for local children where two professionals from Montana appear on a Sunday in June, audition and rehearse through the week and present a complete play with a cast of 40 to 60 on the following Saturday.

Two long-standing affiliates of the Artesia Arts Council are the Artesia Community Theatre and the Artesia Community Chorale.  As the names imply, both groups are composed of local talent.  The Community Theatre presents five plays per year, normally with performances on two weekends per play.  The Community Chorale performs a Christmas concert in early December and a spring concert in May.

In 2000, the leaders of the Arts Council decided that the group could to more to promote art-related activities in the Artesia area.  Since then, we have added the Artesia Concert Association, the Scrapbooking Club and the “Poetry in Motion” club to the list of affiliated organizations.  The Program Committee of the Arts Council has expanded its roster of events into three areas – public performances, children’s activities and educational workshops.  During the current year that began September 1, 2006, the Arts Council and its affiliates are presenting 17 public performances, 14 educational workshops and eight children’s activities.

In 2001, the Arts Council purchased the old Ocotillo movie theatre at Roselawn and Main Streets in downtown Artesia. The theatre was built in 1935 and converted to a cafeteria in the 1950's.

In 2003, we stabilized the building and installed new heating, cooling and electrical systems.  In 2005, the Arts Council purchased the adjacent building at 314 West Main Street with the idea that it could serve as back-stage space for our theatre.

In 2006 the Arts Council hired Devendra Contractor of Albuquerque as architect for the Ocotillo remodeling.  Actual construction work supervised by Jaynes Corporation of Albuquerque, began in September 2007 with scheduled completion in August 2008.  See pictures of the project.

A goal of the Arts Council is to have entertainment at the Ocotillo Performing Arts Center (Opac) every week of the year except for a break at Christmas. five community Theatre productions will consume at least ten weeks of the year. We want to have out-of-town performers about twenty of the remaining weeks plus local talent the other twenty weeks.  The Arts Council will not reach this goal in 2008, but we should be able to approach this level of Opac activity in 2009.