Meet Connie Whitlock of WHAM ART ASSOCIATION in Surprise

Today we’d like to introduce you to Connie Whitlock.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Connie. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I’ve been a clay artist for 18 years living in Sun City Grand, Surprise, for 20 years. I realized that people outside of the Sun Cities didn’t have access to an art facility other than a couple of galleries. My dream was to have a community art center that gave ALL no matter your age, race, religion, gender or ability a chance to realize the importance ART can make in the quality of their lives. I was offered a building that used to be a health care facility by the City of Surprise to make into an Art Center in 2011. WHAM and its membership, all volunteers at that time, spent a lot of sweat to make the 8500 sq ft building into the first community art center in the entire West Valley. In our building, we host professional art exhibits, provide many art classes in many mediums for ages 5 to 105, have 18 working studio artists who provide their own work to the public, create public art for cities and corporations and have five outreach programs.

The outreach is intended to provide an art experience for the populations that are underserved such as veterans with stress disorder, persons with special needs, Alzheimer’s patience, at-risk teens, and a program called Bowls of Hope made by WHAM’s clay members along with Sun City Grands Clay Club to give proceeds for the sales to five local charities at Thanksgiving. WHAM also provides a community Poetry Slam 6 times a year, gives new music groups a chance to perform in an artistic setting a few times a year and goes to parks and city events with our WHAM on Wheels traveling art studio to give more opportunities for those who want to experience an art activity. WHAM has provided several art festivals over the past seven years from Surprise, Peoria, and Goodyear.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Some of our struggles have been to get the word out and advertise what we are doing and where we are. We operate on a small budget. Fundraising and donations are more difficult in today’s world where the arts are not seen as important. Many schools have done away with many art programs. WHAM is working with several schools right now trying to supplement their art education, doing classes at the schools to provide art education.

Managing a volunteer workforce is also a struggle since people want to help but only for a limited time so we’re in a constant training mode. Getting to a place where we can hire and pay employees requires more funding which is one of our priorities.

We’d love to hear more about your organization.
WHAM is the first and only right now true ART CENTER in the entire West Valley of Phoenix. There are a couple of art galleries besides WHAM but not into art education. WHAM is fairly well known now in 13 cities of the West Valley as we are supplementing their art events by providing art activities, festivals, shows and public art throughout the region. WHAM is known for our ability to engage the community and provide visual art to ALL who are interested.

WHAM has docents that welcome and give our visitors a tour and answer all questions from classes that are offered to what our current exhibit is as well as future events. Our doors are open from Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4: oo p.m. WHAM is also known for the ability to reach those who are underserved in our population bringing them into an environment that gives them a chance to build self-esteem.

WHAM also has many artists who do public art and are able to go out into the community to provide such to cities and corporations. Our art studio offers the artists who rent them the opportunity to not only sell but to collaborate with other artists and get to know the community. WHAM has the only working artists studios in the West Valley to date.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success is seeing the faces and hearing the voices who have discovered their hidden talents in their creativity doing and experiencing art.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wham-art.org
• Phone: 623-584-8311
• Email: connie.whitlock@wham-art.org
• Instagram: WHAMartassociation
• Facebook: WHAM.art
• Twitter: WHAMartassoc

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