To the editor:
For 72 years the Sharon Arts Center has been a cultural gift to the Monadnock Valley. Its peaceful, accessible location has offered people of this region classes in such areas as ceramics, weaving, painting and drawing, taught by experts in their fields. About 20 years ago its program developed further with the construction of an improved building. I started taking pottery classes in the original building.
For me the faculty and students there became more than just teachers and classmates but rather an important circle of friends. Other students have found the Center a lifeline, their involvement with other artists a productive environment beyond their daily lives. For all of us the school has been a gift from an art-loving community. Sharon’s shop and gallery in Peterborough has provided an outlet for exhibiting and selling regional art for the community’s benefit.
The Gallery regularly holds important exhibitions for the Monadnock Art Tour, ConVal High School, the NH Potters’ Guild, and others. Many people in this area rely on the Gallery for gifts, especially at Christmas and other holidays. The recent, abrupt closing of these two centers has shocked all of us who rely on Sharon as artists or art patrons and will leave a gaping hole in the Monadnock Region, an area long known for the arts.
Sharon’s credo has always been that art is for everyone, not just people working on a degree but also the rest of us through community education. If Sharon’s facilities are not bought by someone driven to continue this mission, the region will suffer a loss. I deeply appreciate those who have supported the Sharon Arts Center and would be forever grateful to the person or group able to continue its mission. I, for one, would be honored to assist somehow in that rebirth.
Paul Looney
Walpole