When Touchstone contacted “Design Makeover” editor Jake Widman, she provided a link to the current website and asked for their assistance. She said Widman helped define the arts center’s online goals by asking insightful questions such as: If someone were describing the Community Arts Center to a friend, what would they say?
“We’re inviting and inclusionary. We serve broad demographics — children, adults, seniors — and we want everyone to feel included here,” Touchstone explains. “This exercise helped us clarify how we want to be portrayed on the Internet, so that’s the real win for us.”
Each of the newly designed “After” images offers a very different vision of what the Arts Center’s website could look like in the near future. Glovier added a slideshow of evocative community photos and deepened the site’s eye-catching color scheme. Anderson created a dramatic black background with red wood-panel highlights for a warmer, friendlier feel. Elder’s design was sophisticated, drawing from the elegant black and blue layout of the arts center’s brochure.
“Each one of us had our favorite and we all don’t love the same one,” says Touchstone with a laugh. “Though I like features from most all of them. We want to be accessible on many fronts, visit us in person to see our frequently changing exhibits, check out our website to reserve a spot in a Starry Night Studio Class, or call us to ask a question or two. With a fully functioning website, the community can stay in touch with us 24 hours a day.”
Evaluating a new website is just one more activity of this year’s agenda at the Community Arts Center. The CAC’s brand new “Thriller” dance classes will add a delightfully spooky feel to Halloween weekend in Danville, when participants are to perform the dance classic on Main Street during the annual “Trick or Treat on Main” event Oct. 30.
The fun continues throughout the month with the Starry Night Studio, a social painting experience that will have even those who have never touched a paintbrush soon painting like pros.
In November and December, a whimsical forest of Christmas trees will be sprouting in the Grand Hall, a welcome addition to the holiday magic that seasonally lights up Danville’s Main Street. A blockbuster “All Aboard!” railway exhibit will be pulling into the Arts station soon after featuring interactive and fun opportunity for families to learn lore, music and mystery of trains.
The Community Arts Center continues to be a hub of arts activity in the Danville/Boyle County community with their fantastic list of ongoing activities, including their Lunch with the Arts series, Community Improv Nights, exercise and fitness classes, and music and art lessons. The Community Arts Center continually welcomes and encourages everyone to explore his or her creative side while indulging in fun arts activities that are engaging for the whole family.
People often wonder what the big Federal Building on the corner of 4th and Main streets holds inside its intimidating walls. It’s neither the courthouse, the water company, nor the post office — it’s Danville’s own Community Arts Center, a non-profit focused on cultivating and supporting the arts throughout the community and region, located in the heart of Danville. It offers arts education, free or low-cost exhibits and displays that change monthly, routine performances and lectures, as well as space for public gatherings. Arts education in dance, drama, music and visual arts continues year-round, provided by independent arts instructors who contract to use space in the Arts Center. Thanks to funding through state tax dollars, through the Kentucky Arts Council, and generous donations by the community, the Community Arts Center is able to provide arts opportunities of all sorts to Danville/Boyle County.
