The Sweetwater Gallery
The primary purpose of Sweetwater’s gallery exhibitions is public education in the arts. The cooperative mounts a new exhibit for each downtown ArtWalk, over 250 exhibits since the inception of the Cooperative. The task of coordinating the exhibits, maintaining the gallery space and staffing an opening reception eleven times annually falls on the members of the cooperative.
The gallery has focused on printmakers and related media, but has also featured themed exhibits or been made available to visiting artists whose work would otherwise not have been made available to public audiences in our geographical area. Shows feature primarily the work of professional and emerging artists, but from time to time the work of students may also be presented.
The Sweetwater Studio
The ground floor of the Tench building was renovated soon after Sweetwater Print Cooperative’s organization to meet the specific technical and code requirements of a printmaking studio. The reasoning was that ground floor space could accommodate the weight of a printing press and other equipment, and that the expensive renovations would be put to good purpose through the cooperative structure that allowed for large number of people to utilize the space.
Sweetwater Print Cooperative has continually made improvements and purchased equipment to extend the capabilities of the studio.