Atlantic Center for the Arts (ACA) is a nonprofit, interdisciplinary artists’ community and arts education facility dedicated to promoting artistic excellence by providing talented artists an opportunity to work and collaborate with some of the world’s most distinguished contemporary artists in the fields of composing

Musical composition

Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...

, visual

Visual arts

The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...

, literary, and performing arts. Community interaction is coordinated through on-site and outreach presentations, workshops, and exhibitions. The ACA is located in New Smyrna Beach, Florida

New Smyrna Beach, Florida

New Smyrna Beach is a city in Volusia County, Florida, United States. The population was 20,048 according to the 2000 census. As of 2007, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 23,161.-History:...

, just four miles from the east coast beaches of central Florida.

Pabst Visitor Center & Gallery

The Pabst Visitor Center is part of the ACA headquarters at 1414 Art Center Avenue, in New Smyrna Beach. The Visitor Center includes several public art galleries. The Jean G. Harris History Gallery features a permanent exhibit about the history and work of the Atlantic Center for the Arts. The Master Artist Gallery features changing exhibits by ACA Master Artists and other themed shows. The Jack Mitchell Portrait Gallery displays photographic portraits of ACA Master Artists since 1982. The Visitor Center also features a gift shop, and a 500-foot public art and nature trail.

Harris House Gallery

The ACA also operates the Harris House Gallery at the Community Arts Center at Harris House, 214 South Riverside Drive,
New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

Master Artists-in-Residence Program

Since 1982, Atlantic Center's residency program has provided artists from all artistic disciplines with spaces to live, work, and collaborate during three-week residencies. The pine and palmetto wooded environment contains award-winning studios that include a resource library, painting studio, sculpture studio, music studio, dance studio, black box theater, writer's studio, and digital computer lab. Each residency session includes three master artists of different disciplines. The master artists each personally select a group of associates — talented, emerging artists — through an application process administered by ACA. During the residency, artists participate in informal sessions with their group, collaborate on projects, and work independently on their own projects. The relaxed atmosphere and unstructured program provide considerable time for artistic regeneration and creation. Atlantic Center for the Arts provides housing (private room/bath with work desk), weekday meals (provided by ACA chef) and 24-hour access to shared studio space. Past master artists include Edward Albee

Edward Albee

Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...

, Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg

Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...

, and John Ashbery

John Ashbery

John Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery's work still proves controversial...

.

Community Art Programs

In 1991, Atlantic Center for the Arts at Harris House opened and the community arts program had its beginning. Located in the heart of a revitalized downtown, an historic home was converted to a cultural community center that since its inception has assumed a leadership role in providing arts education programs for children and cultural enrichment for adults. ACA at Harris House has exhibition space devoted solely to Florida artists.

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