NEWPORT – Chasse Davidson has been hired as the new director of the Newport Visual Arts Center.
The arts center, located at the historic Nye Beach turnaround, was built in 1983 by the city of Newport as a public art exhibition space and for art education programs. It is maintained and operated by the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts. The center is the largest facility on the Oregon coast built specifically for the exhibition of visual art and includes three traditional gallery spaces, as well as a newer media room and classroom gallery.
Davidson moved to the Oregon coast in 2007. She’s been a “gung-ho potter” for 25 years, and filled numerous roles in the coastal art scene, including ceramics teacher, former president of the Toledo Arts Guild and member of the Visual Arts Center steering committee. She also managed Clay Works, a ceramics studio in Toledo, after the original owner gave her the business. But with Covid came the realization that paying rent on the space when there was no income was too great a financial risk.
“I closed and sold my stuff to my members,” she said. “Subsequently, five studios opened in town with the equipment I sold to my members. It was really sad, but I felt good about that.”
Davidson took over leadership of the Visual Arts Center in August. She has a good sense of the direction she’d like to take the art center, but is in a wait-and-see mode.
“I want to educate myself as far as the how and why things have been going the way they are before I start implementing my ideas,” Davidson said. “What I’d really like to see happen is an increased community involvement, a greater portion of the population served through this building.”
That might include changing gallery openings from Saturday afternoons to Friday evenings, opening exhibit space to more local artists, and working more closely with similar nonprofits in the community, such as the Lincoln County Historical Society and Lincoln City Cultural Center, to promote the arts.
“Sometimes change is hard for people,” she said. “That’s something I dealt with at Clay Works. I know what to anticipate and how to be sensitive to the reactions to that and make sure I’m not doing too much at once. I want to make sure I am in a learning mindset.”
— Oregon ArtsWatch, a news partner of YachatsNews.