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History of the Brazos Valley Art League Prior to 1973, there are two art leagues in Brazos County – one in College Station and one in Bryan. The Arts Council held a meeting of the officers of the two groups and proposed that they join forces and become the Brazos Valley Art League. If the two groups would become one entity, the Art Council would find a place for the group to meet and have a small gallery. In April 1975, the Brazos Valley Art League adopted by-laws,
elected officers for the purpose of incorporating to become a
non-profit organization and filed the necessary documents with
State of Texas to become chartered. Ms. Connie Wortham donated
the use of a small building, which she and her husband owned,
for the use of meetings and as a small gallery. The group began
meeting in the building and showing artwork in 1975. It was a
little over a year later, in 1977, which the league outgrew the
temporary quarters and decided to move to a building on Texas
Avenue which was formerly used to house Beale Century 21. It was
located near the parking lot of the old Wal-Mart store connected
to Manor East Mall. The League set up a gallery and began
selling members’ artwork and holding meetings at the new
location. All went well for about a year, but the league had
neglected to apply for a tax-exempt status with the State of
Texas and the IRS. Because there was no paid full-time employee
to act as curator for the League, many of the necessary
bookkeeping functions, daily programming and scheduling went
undone. The League did not understand that they had to report
sales tax and that each member was responsible for their own
sales tax. Therefore, they didn’t collect it. Once the State
comptroller and IRS got involved, the Art League contacted an
attorney; it took about two years to clear up the mistake.In the meantime, members had dropped from more than 200 to 100 and the League was forced to close the gallery. Members were afraid the IRS might audit them and left the club. Phyllis Dozier, the acting Executive Director of the Brazos Center, contacted then President Ruth Bertrand, and set up a meeting of the Board to discuss the new Brazos Center facility and the possibility of becoming a permanent resident at the Center. The League membership voted to move to the Brazos Center and the Board talked to the architects of the facility to help design three painting/workshop or meeting rooms plus an art storage room between two of the painting rooms. The League moved to the new facility when it opened in 1978. For some time BVAL rented the three rooms. The Museum of Natural History then built on to the Brazos Center and incorporated one of the three painting rooms. At the same time, the Art League had lost members and closed its office and started to rent rooms on an “as needed basis”. Although the Brazos Center does not have all the rooms we first designed and rented for visual art use, it has been our home for 23 years. The BVAL now rents one room and storage closet on a yearly basis for our meetings, workshops and classes. In the past five years, our
strategic planning committee has looked into opportunities for a
permanent residence that would furnish the League with a
gallery, a meeting room and studio space that could be rented to
local artists. |
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