yuma art center

The Yuma Art Center is a beautiful gallery and venue. Downtown Yuma is surprisingly lovely. It's clean, safe and filled with gorgeous art-deco architecture. The gallery has soaring ceilings and other than displaying work from local artists, it would be a fantastic event space, and has even hosted a few weddings.There were great pieces, some as low as $150, and in a variety of mediums. Some of the collection was Yuma-centric. Great place to stop in if you're strolling downtown.

I have been there three times in the last three weeks. Last time was today Tuesday March 25 at 2:30 pm and all three times this place was closed. Today the signs said open in window but door was locked. There were other people trying to go in as well. One couple said they had tried a few times before as well and the place was always closed as well

It has some great rotating displays, but not too large, can see in a short stop or take an hour or more if you extend it. Can get great information about other local arts and activity events going on in town. Nice downtown spot, great ice cream shop next door:).

The evening started with the booking agent doing a PowerPoint of the next season's line up, in an effort to get subscribers for this coming season's performances. The sound was poor at best. Imagine yourself trying to sell season tickets for different musical performances, when your sound is not working. A tough job even when the sound does work. But, this was a harbinger of what was to come.The concert, A Tribute To Barry Manilow, part of the seasonal series, had excellent, talent. The vocals performed to the best one could expect for the caliber of entertainers, and they are not the kind that are just off the street. The instrumental backup, a trombonist, a trumpet player, a bass guitar, and guitarist, and what turned out to be the feature artist, the drummer, are highly skilled, professionals from all over USA and Canada.What happened?The feature was supposed to be the pianist and his performance of songs of Barry Manilow. But, only when the instruments were next to silent could any intelligence be made of the vocals. The backup singers, three, made no difference if they stood at their assigned microphones and sang, or went back stage. The lead, was only intelligible if he left all the instruments silent or next to it, including the piano. The back up instruments played a cacophony sounding as an overwhelming blast, that drowned everything including the color and tones of their own instruments themselves. The drummer became the featured star, for, if had any word that was sung by the lead singer, who was supposed to be the star, could have been heard as clear and with the accent of the notes played by this drummer, the result would have been totally different. A successful performance. So, what had every possibility of an enjoyable evening at this concert, was slain; the question was by whom?An investigation into the matter, trying to track down the culprit was made by talking to the various suspects. First on the list was the booking agent responsible for the performance. She undertook to speak with the sound manager after the break in an attempt to quiet the overpowering drummer and instrumentals. This has a somewhat ameliorating effect in the second half of the performance, but only partially. So, talk with other patrons, one said that this occurs all the time for most performances, one held that he has seen this for the past five seasons. So, on the way out, after the performance, talk with the sound manager, a kid of possibly twenty or so years, who said in response to the statement when told of our changing seats from a different part of the theater in a prior season where the results were the same, "naturally you are going to hear things different". Then when he's told that the vocals were drowned by the drums and the instrumentals, he said: what we do is turn up the volume. The performers are highly talented professionals. They did not hold back. They gave the best performance one could expect of such accomplished people. And this occurs for almost every concert at the center.Who was responsible for destroying their efforts?Maybe the people who are guilty of seeing this as a travesty are we, ourselves, the patrons. Patrons with expectations of hearing what the vocalists, featured artists, are actually saying instead of just "enjoying" the beat and performance of what we think of as a support artist, the drummer, or the blaring noise of the "background" instruments?The booking agent should be lauded in that she spends thousands of dollars for top performers. But then she only spends a tiny amount for a kid to run the sound system.

i was surprised to find the arts center so enjoyable. always different things going on there. much local talent

This institution is a terrific addition to Yuma, the quality of the local artists is amazing. The architecture of the building itself is worth a visit.