Centennial Art Center
Episode 59 | 2m 30sVideo has Closed Captions
Centennial Art Center is a gallery and visual arts teaching facility in Centennial Park.
Centennial Art Center, located in Nashville’s Centennial Park, is a visual arts center with galleries, painting and pottery studios. Built in 1932, the building was originally a swimming complex, but was closed during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. The space reopened as the Centennial Art Center in 1972 and celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2022.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Arts Break is a local public television program presented by WNPT
Centennial Art Center
Episode 59 | 2m 30sVideo has Closed Captions
Centennial Art Center, located in Nashville’s Centennial Park, is a visual arts center with galleries, painting and pottery studios. Built in 1932, the building was originally a swimming complex, but was closed during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. The space reopened as the Centennial Art Center in 1972 and celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2022.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
How to Watch Arts Break
Arts Break is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio.
Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(gentle music) - Centennial Art Center is a community education learning center in the northeast corner of Centennial Park.
We're really lucky in Nashville and Davidson County to have a Metro Parks Department that wants to focus on the health and wellness of the whole person.
So in addition to Metro Parks having offerings in recreation and physical activity, they also offer cultural offerings.
And the art center is under that cultural arts umbrella.
So, with Metro Parks Visual Arts, we're able to offer those other semi-recreational activities that actually develop you as a whole person, because arts can be very therapeutic and great for the wellness of the mind and soul.
(gentle music) Centennial Art Center opened in 1972, and it's been functioning as a community arts and learning center with a community and regional gallery as well.
So, we showcase local and regional artists.
We offer affordable and accessible classes in drawing, painting, printmaking, pottery, and sculpture, as well as a variety of workshops and other mini course forms.
One of the things that I love about the art center is its longevity in the community and the fact that it does come from kind of a troubled past.
The building was actually constructed in 1931 and opened as a public swimming pool.
However, it was a whites only swimming pool, and it was shut down during the Civil Rights Movement and it never reopened as a pool.
The building itself was then renovated and reopened in 1972 as Centennial Art Center.
One of the goals of Metro Park's Visual Arts and us at Centennial Art Center is to offer affordable and accessible programming for the city.
So, admission to the art center is absolutely free.
The cost of our classes, when you sign up for one of our eight week classes, or one of our workshops or mini courses that we offer, we try to target those price points to be really affordable for the consumer.
I believe that the arts have an opportunity, a unique opportunity, to create a safe place for creative expression, for dialogue, to heal communities.
And I really am excited that the city has embraced the art center for as long as it has, and that it continues to thrive.
(gentle music)
Support for PBS provided by:
Arts Break is a local public television program presented by WNPT