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Artists keep company at Two Twelve Arts Center's new Saline home

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

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Saline

At the Two Twelve Arts Center in Saline, mud gets a makeover into the exotic this March with a class offering in Bogolan, the Northwest African art of mud cloth design. The center offers all manner of art classes and programming, children's summer camps, and exhibits, and in January moved to its new location at 216 W. Michigan Avenue in downtown Saline, two doors down from its former home.

"[Two Twelve] started five years ago and there were only about four of us, and then it sort of exploded," says Margie Bovee, its founder and director. The configuration of the new space, while not significantly larger than the old, is less cramped and better meets the needs of the 50-75 artists who teach or gather there each month. The center now has a reception area and a pottery studio with a separate entrance; the former location's pottery studio was in the basement.

The center, which operates as a nonprofit 501(c)3 charitable foundation, hosts a sizable coffee klatch � or in this case, a pastry klatch � every Friday morning. The Cake Eaters, a group of about 33 artists, meet for networking and to trade ideas for media or techniques they're using, Bovee says. New artists are welcome.

"It's a gathering [space] and you need that. So many artists are out there working independently from anything and they just need some time to share," Bovee adds. "Operating in a vacuum is never a good thing."

Source: Margie Bovee, founder and director of Two Twelve Arts Center
Writer: Tanya Muzumdar