MESA ARTS CENTER

MESA ARTS CENTER bringing programs, classes and experiences home

By Lisa Van Loo

Cindy Ornstein isn’t opposed to digital programming. It’s one of the ways Mesa Arts Center has been able to remain connected to its community, pull new people in and tap into a new type of creativity as it finds ways to deliver programming to the public.

However, she appreciates that people may need an offline experience, too. It’s why Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum has mounted an exhibition inside the windows of Mesa Arts Center's long theater building, visible from the exterior. Each artwork is separated from the others in a linear display, much like our own separation these days.

“It’s called Distanced but not Separated, which is a fun play on being socially distanced and still giving people access to works from the collection,” Ornstein, director of arts and culture for the city of Mesa and executive director of Mesa Arts Center, says. “We’re trying to be creative and do things that are not all on a screen.”

While Mesa did migrate as much programming as possible from its arts and culture organizations to a virtual environment, Ornstein says they were deliberate in finding ways to offer interactive, not just passive, online experiences, from poetry prompts to arts classes to Art-To-Go projects in a box, to live comedy, improv and illusion performances.

“We pivoted pretty quickly to take a bunch of our core programming and convert it to a virtual format,” Ornstein says, noting the schedule for online classes will be even more robust into the fall. “We’re very excited about the capacity we’re gaining to do things in a different way. It’s going to give us new ways of working that we won’t totally stop doing when we go back to the norm.”

That “norm” may return in January or sooner, and it may not, Ornstein says. But when it does, any in-person interactions would require masks, social distancing, lower capacities, timed tickets to museums and one-way routes for visitors to follow while inside the buildings. But she suspects people will be just fine with it. Because people need the arts, especially right now, she says.

That need was illustrated by the success of a recent Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum online arts competition that attracted nearly 250 entries from 18 states this summer.

“That was really cool,” Ornstein says. “The arts bring light and they bring joy and they bring a sense of connectivity. We need that now more than ever.”

For more information, visit mesaartscenter.com.