City Arts Nashua to Cease Operations

City Arts Nashua, a nonprofit volunteer arts organization, announced today that it will cease operations at the end of the 2023 year after 20 years of service to the greater Nashua community.

Formed in 2004, the organization’s mission has been to enrich the quality of life in the region by providing leadership to support and strengthen arts and culture. “City Arts Nashua has more than accomplished its mission,” said Lisa Bissonnette, president of the organization’s board of directors. “We are so proud to have promoted, advocated, networked, nurtured, and produced events and projects to make Nashua a destination for the arts and a place where people want to work, play and stay.”

City Arts Nashua helped found and worked closely with the Nashua Arts Commission, and partnered with local artists and arts groups, community organizations, businesses, government and state and national arts organizations. For 19 years, the organization produced ArtWalk, a celebrated arts event, and since 2014 the Meri Goyette Art Awards and Luncheon, which recognized the contributions of non-arts community members and organizations to the regional arts landscape.

Photos by Allegra Boverman

With funding from the City of Nashua and in partnership with artist Jerry Beck and artists, youth, and community members, in 2015 City Arts Nashua launched ArtVentures, a public art program that facilitated temporary art projects, performances, and special events to create a more fun and pedestrian-friendly environment for shopping, dining, culture and entertainment in downtown Nashua.

City Arts Nashua commissioned Vivian’s Dream, a mural by Nashua artist Barbara Andrews, and restored two important murals in the city, including Margaret’s View of Nashua by renowned artist Lucienne Bloch; and Yankee Flyer Diner by Nashua native and former Artist Laureate of New Hampshire, James Aponovich.

The organization served as fiscal sponsor of the Nashua Center for the Arts until that organization reached independence, and acted as the fiscal sponsor of the Nashua International Sculpture Symposium for 11 years; NISS is now independent and is the only community-based international sculpture symposium in the United States. They also fiscally sponsored the Nashua Silver Knights Holman Stadium Art Banner Project Committee in 2017 and were instrumental in achieving the inclusion of arts and culture in the City of Nashua Master Plan.

In 2019, City Arts Nashua also administered an “Art Every Day” mini-grant program to provide resources and art supplies to organizations, educators and others who were working to create art/arts programs and in need of the means and materials to do so. And since 2020 and throughout the pandemic, the organization provided resources and connection to individual artists and arts organizations in the greater Nashua region.

“Nashua is not the same place it was in 2004, “said Bissonnette. “Our city received the Creative Communities Governor’s Arts Award from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts in 2017, and former Mayor Donnalee Lozeau was honored with the Local Arts Leadership Award by Americans for the Arts in 2014. The work of City Arts Nashua contributed greatly to these recognitions, and we have confidence that this wonderful work will continue, and Nashua will always be an amazing community that understands the importance of the arts for connection and community building.”

“We would like to thank our board members, who will continue their work with other Nashua arts organizations and projects, donors, and volunteers. We could not have done any of this without you. For the organization to continue, we would need to refocus our mission. Most of the areas we would choose to focus on are already well established in our community. We could not be happier.”