A Message From The Howland Cultural Center - Art in the Time of Corona

Editor’s Note: The following is written by Craig Wolf, the President of The Howland Cultural Center. The HCC is currently closed to the public from all events and regular meetings until further notice.

Ah, so here we are, with normal life brought to a standstill as we scurry around trying to avoid a virus and cope with the civil restrictions that it brings.

With apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marquez for cloning the title of his great novel, it does seem to offer a bit of a parallel. His heroine is involved with two lovers. Here, we all have two loves. We love our arts. And we love to stay healthy.

Not much is happening publicly here at our little nonprofit. We are an arts center that normally produces and presents performances and exhibits, largely administered by volunteers. We can’t do that right now.

COVID-19 isn’t quite cholera, but it’s serious. And we are serious about getting back to business when they let us. We regret that the postponements include our now-annual gala event, which will have to be rescheduled.

Meanwhile, we continue to work behind the scenes to plan a future, so that this bulletin will once again be filled with art events. We do expect this story to have a happy ending.

But for now, the impact of not producing events is a significant loss of revenue. It is through doing what we do that we earn a good chunk of our keep. What’s left on the revenue side for now is just donations. Thankfully, many friends have recently responded to our annual campaign, which we now call Friends of the Howland Center. And we thank you again.

So, if you have yet to help, now would be a good time. A really good time.

How do you become a friend at a social distance?  Good thing we invented the internet. You just click right here.

Best to all of you from the Howland crew, and stay tuned.

On behalf of our board and volunteers.