Arts Program Comes to North Canton Civic Center

The Canton Museum of Art once again will team up with the city of North Canton to host an arts program at the North Canton Civic Center this year.

M. J. Albacete, executive director of the Canton Museum of Art, spoke before North Canton City Council Monday night, asking for a $5,000 grant that would allow several exhibits, workshops and concerts to take place at the venue as part of the GeoArt program.

Plans for the upcoming series include theater presentations, brass and string quartets, engineering and recycled material artwork and a finale consisting of a Saturday workshop for North Canton students.

Albacete said the events engage not only North Canton residents but have proved to be a real draw to others outside the community.

“These aren’t just performance pieces, but they have educational value,” Albacete said. “We’re expecting each of these people, like the string quartet for example, one of the speakers would try to inform the audience on the difficulty and technical aspects of playing an instrument like the violin because we don’t often get to hear anything like that.”

Council approved the resolution to support the Canton Museum of Art’s GeoArt program that night.

said the city was given a grant two years ago by the Solid Waste District, and part of that grant mandates some money go toward educational purposes.

So, Albacete had started a program in which he worked with North Canton students making artwork from recycled paper and held a one-day art seminar at the . He also requested use of North Canton Civic Center one day a month to promote the arts, and about 100-125 people attended those every evening.

“We were so encouraged by the success of that program and we would like to include a more diverse selection of programs,” he said.

During the last four months of 2011, the Canton Museum of Art presented four programs at the North Canton Civic Center after the city permitted them to use the center free of charge. Programs ranged in topic from the Civil War to the Statue of Liberty and a holiday exhibit about the art of nativity.

"There is one thing that people will universally tell me, and that is that we do not provide enough arts to the community," Snyder said, adding the programs at the North Canton Civic Center will help bolster arts in the community.