Exclusive Spotlight Tour: Essex Arts Center

Experience the vibrant creativity of Essex Art Center where every visit brings fresh inspiration and there’s always something extraordinary happening. On this exclusive Spotlight Tour, we will step inside three of Buffalo’s most dynamic creative hubs for an intimate exploration of art, process, and place.

• Begin at Essex Art Studios, a historic industrial building transformed into a thriving community of working artists. Guests will have the unique opportunity to enter private studios – spaces typically closed to the public. The building itself tells a story of adaptive reuse, reflecting the city’s broader creative resurgence, as it was transformed from a turn of the century Ice House into a home for a number of businesses.
• Go Inside 19 IDEAS,  a strategic marketing agency that brings partnership to every project they take on, infusing artistry and science to create marketing plans that work.
• See BICA, Buffalo Institute of Contemporary Artists, an artist -run nonprofit cultural organization. All of BICA’s programs are free or pay-what-you-can, and each one is designed to make contemporary art accessible while strengthening Buffalo’s creative infrastructure for the long term.
• Learn about the Ashford Hollow Foundation, which owns and operates the Griffis Sculpture Park in East Otto and the Essex Arts Center in Buffalo. The mission of the Ashford Hollow Foundation is to promote the visual and performing arts as well as construct a dynamic relationship between the arts and education in Western New York to better its young people and the greater community.

This tour is approximately 90 minutes and there are some stairs scattered throughout the tour. Closed-toed shoes ONLY – no sandals or open-toe shoes, as you will be walking in active art studios.  Parking is available in the lot at 30 Essex Street and the lot behind the Essex Street Pub as well as on the street.

Doors open 9:45am