With New Facility, RAM Attracts High-Profile Exhibits, More Visitors

The Fort Smith Regional Art Museum (RAM) has come a long way since January. Before then, it was called the Fort Smith Arts Center and was located in the historic Vaughn-Schaap House in the Belle Grove district of the city.

The new, 16,000-SF facility on Rogers Avenue is five times the size of the Victorian-style house, allowing the entity to expand in just about every way.

RAM executive director Lee Ortega said membership has greatly increased since the transition, and the museum has welcomed nearly 4,000 visitors so far this year. This compares to an annual average of 500 visitors at the old location.

The RAM board is hoping to increase attendance even more with its recent decision to follow in the footsteps of institutions like the Smithsonian museums and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art by waiving the entrance fee to its facility.

“The fewer barriers that exist between the museum and the community the better,” Ortega said.

The RAM is also attracting exhibits that are well-known in the art community on a national level. Publications like the Dallas Morning News have featured stories that include the RAM’s exhibition of “Winslow Homer and the American Pictorial Press in America,” which opened Nov. 8.

This exhibition highlights the emerging celebrity of Homer as a printmaker, before he devoted his career solely to painting.

In addition to attracting high-profile exhibits, the RAM is also drawing in bigger donations. The museum raised nearly $3 million for the new building in 2012. And this year the museum is expected to receive one of the largest shares of grant money for nonprofits from the city of Fort Smith, second only to the Boys & Girls Club. The city’s Outside Agency Review Panel recommended $13,000 to fund the RAM in 2014.

Now that the RAM has raised its profile in the art world, it has been partnering with Crystal Bridges in Bentonville and the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock to create joint programming.

The RAM worked with one of Crystal Bridges’ curators on a popular event in Fort Smith called the 65th River Valley Invitational. And the museum collaborated with the Arkansas Arts Center on “Mona Lisa’s Daughters” that was presented in conjunction with the RAM’s opening exhibition early this year.

The museum recently was given the 2013 Excellence Through Rehabilitation Award by The Historic Preservation Alli-
ance of Arkansas for its restoration of a mid-20th century building that became the new facility.

The new space has also allowed the museum to add new programs, including “Drop in and Draw.” Each Thursday, from noon to 4 p.m., the museum offers free studio space in the lower level of the museum, along with easels and a live model for artists to hone their skills. 

The museum also offers quarterly intensive workshops with well-known artists from throughout the country. The RAM is in the planning stages of starting art camps for children, but it is seeking corporate sponsorships in order to make it happen.