THE CROTON-CORTLANDT CENTER FOR THE ARTS HAS CLOSED ITS DOORS

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Sad news...

Dear Friends: It is with great sadness that we announce that The Croton-Cortlandt Center for the Arts ("cccArts") will no longer be providing visual arts education in our community.

As you may be aware, in January 2014 a fire destroyed the building that formerly housed cccArts. Through the extraordinary efforts of our Executive Director Gayle Lamb, senior instructor Cathy Faiella, and cccArts' other staff, we were able to continue providing classes in various temporary locations over the past two years while we searched for a new permanent home. Unfortunately, despite having followed up on all possible leads and having visited over a dozen properties, we were unable to find a location that was both suitable and available to cccArts at little or no cost, as our prior home had been.

Then, in December 2015 Gayle Lamb informed cccArts that, due to personal reasons, she would be leaving the New York area for the foreseeable future and would, regrettably, be resigning her position as Executive Director. As a result, and despite the Board's efforts to identify another viable way forward, it has become clear that cccArts can no longer continue its operations.

We are extremely grateful for the generous support that cccArts has received throughout its more than 20-year history. The Town of Cortlandt, under the leadership of Town Supervisor Linda Puglisi, and Arts Westchester have been sponsors of cccArts for many years, and we sincerely thank them for their support. We would also like to recognize the many members of the community who responded to our fundraising requests and who volunteered their time for our events over the years. And, of course, cccArts would not have been the vibrant educational organization that it was without the warmth and enthusiasm of our teachers or the curiosity and diligence of our students. We thank you, as well, for your contributions to cccArts.

Cathy Faiella, a long-time senior instructor at cccArts, will continue to offer art education classes for students in our area. We encourage anyone interested in attending Ms. Faiella's classes to contact her directly at: Cathy.carabee.faiella@gmail.com, 914 954-2633. In addition, the Garrison Art Center, the Hat Factory in Peekskill, the Rye Art Center, the Katonah Art Center, Westchester Community College Center for the Arts in White Plains and its Center for the Digital Arts in Peekskill are among the many fine organizations providing arts education in our community. We hope that cccArts' former students will continue to pursue their study of the visual arts with these organizations or at other arts institutions.

We are honored to have been entrusted with the supervision of cccArts for the past several years, and we look forward to a bright future for the visual arts in our community notwithstanding the unfortunate events that have resulted in the closing of cccArts.

Very truly yours,

The Board of Directors 

The Croton-Cortlandt Center for the Arts, Inc.