Located in the heart of Apponaug, Warwick Center for the Arts celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and the Center is currently in the midst of a full year of activities. Next up: a masquerade party and the opening of a group art exhibition centered around the theme of fifty.

Founded as the Warwick Museum, the Center was born in February 1974.  The Warwick Junior Women’s Club, who were the driving force of the effort, hoped the museum would “create a new cultural and educational focal point for to community.”

Warwick resident Joyce Almeida was the founding President of the museum’s board, and she recently told current Executive Director Danielle Salisbury how the museum came to be.

“She shared details about how the idea to create a museum in Warwick became a project for the club,” said Salisbury. “They entered the project into the National Federation of Women’s Club Community Improvement Contest. The project came in fifth out of ten thousand clubs competing nationally, which brought home prize money for the museum project.”

In 1975, Warwick Junior Women’s Club members presented the concept of the museum to the Warwick Bicentennial Commission. The Commission fully endorsed the project and the founders began fundraising.

“The Bicentennial Committee also contributed a cash award that helped provide seed money for the organization to flourish,” Salisbury adds.

The museum opened its doors in Pontiac Mills in February 1976, the year of the nation’s bicentennial. The first exhibit at the museum featured the history of Warwick’s textiles and mills.

That home for the museum would be short-lived, because in 1977 the Warwick Boys Club decided to move out of the Kentish Artillery Building in Apponaug. Carole Blank, the museum’s director at the time, negotiated a lease with George Rice of the Kentish Artillery, and that September the Museum began leasing its current home for $25 per month.

Built in 1912 by the firm William R. Walker and Son, the old armory building is on the National Registry of Historical Buildings as part of what is known as the Warwick Civic Center Historic District, which also includes City Hall and the Henry Warner Budlong Memorial Library. The large brick room that comprises the gallery was originally a drill hall for the Kentish Artillery Unit.

The Center fits snugly between the library and St. Barnabus Episcopal Church on Post Road.

The name has changed several times over the years: the Warwick Museum became the Warwick Art Museum and then the Warwick Museum of Art before settling in as the Warwick Center for the Arts in 2015.

The Center has faced several challenges over the years, including within the last decade from the pandemic to lease agreements.

“In 2017, the Center was awarded a $140,000 grant from the Champlin Foundation to fix and restore the front of the building,” said Salisbury. “However, the lease from the city had expired and the presiding mayor refused to renew the art center’s lease, leaving the Art Center without recourse.”

In 2019, then-mayor Joseph Solomon told the Beacon’s John Howell that he was going to evict the Center to put city offices in the Armory. That luckily did not happen, and in 2021 Mayor Frank Picozzi offered the Center a new ten-year lease.

In addition to producing community art exhibitions, the Center also holds art classes for adults and youth, yoga classes, summer art camps, and other events. Upcoming events include a poetry reading with Hannah Little on Saturday, April 26; the first in a series of plein air painting events in Apponaug Village, also on April 26; a weekly Saturday morning Vinyasa yoga class; and a series of summer art camps that begin the week of June 23.

On Saturday, May 3 from 6 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., the Center presents “Celebrating 50”, a masquerade party with live music by the Lafayette Band Flute Trio. There will also be appetizers, a raffle, and a chance to view the new group exhibition Fifty. Masquerade guests are encouraged to come in their “most creative, magical, whimsical, elaborate or mysterious attire,” according to the invitation.

Artists were asked to respond to the prompt “What does fifty mean to you?”, with the call for artists referencing both the fifty states and Molly Shannon’s “I’m 50!” Saturday Night Live sketch.

Artists were encouraged to think about historical significance, personal reflections, or cultural and social commentary, with the door left open for abstract or conceptual art inspired by the number. A Best in Show prize will be juried by Shari Weschler, Director of the Wickford Art Association.

The deadline for entries closed March 28. The exhibit runs through May 30 and the gallery is open 11am–3pm Wednesdays through Saturdays.

The anniversary celebration will conclude with a ticketed fundraiser in September.

The Warwick Center for the Arts gallery is free and open to the public

11a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays.

Learn more about WCFA and plan your visit at www.warwickcfa.org.