Brewery Arts Center Executive Director Gina Lopez takes a bow, set to leave at end of year
Brewery Arts Center Executive Director takes her final bow from the position at the end of the year. Gina Lopez took over as volunteer executive director in August of 2014, during a time when the BAC was in great turmoil and financial distress.
She became the permanent Executive Director in 2015 and under her direction, along with an army of loyal volunteers, artists, staff and board members, the Brewery Arts Center is now the financially solvent and ever innovative arts center it was always meant to be. On that cue, Lopez now exits the BAC and heads to San Diego County where she will take over as CEO of the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.
“I love the BAC and am so proud of everything we have built here but it’s time to pass the baton”, says Lopez, “in the beginning, I told everyone that we had the potential to create the community we want to live in, and that’s exactly what we have done. Now I’m excited to open a new chapter at California Center for the Arts. It’s an amazing opportunity that I am very grateful for."
Using arts as the vehicle to create community capacity, the Brewery Arts Center has made great strides in uniting the community through the arts. Most significantly, with the Levitt AMP Carson City Free Summer Concert series. The concerts are of diverse genres which bring 2000-3000 audience members each Saturday night during the ten-week series to the heart of the historic district and is funded in part by the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation out of Los Angeles. With the financial support of the Levitt Foundation along with local businesses such as The Change Companies, Carson Tahoe Hospital, The Bank Saloon, Mangia Tutto, Plumas Bank and many others, BAC will begin its seventh season of Levitt AMP Carson City in June of 2023.
When Lopez applied for the first Levitt Grant in 2015, she knew it was a long shot to win this national award. This generous grant gave the BAC a strong foundation and making barrier free opportunities to participate in the arts has become the cornerstone of everything the BAC does. Recently, Levitt announced that Carson City will be among the communities awarded a matching grant of $90,000 over three years.”
“I really appreciate the thoughtful nature in which Levitt has supported organizations like ours”, says Lopez, “they are giving communities plenty of opportunity to make their summer concerts self-sufficient so that the music continues for generations to come."
In the past eight years, the BAC has received over a million dollars in grants and cultivated a Celtic Series, a Bluegrass Series, a singer/songwriter series, created TEDxCarsonCity, a choir for seniors, Art in the Park, after school and juvenile hall programs, multiple murals, and a re-imagined the artisan gallery which became a traveling exhibition space. The center has produced hundreds of classes and concerts and given dozens of other arts organizations a place to call home, all working together under the new roofs of the BAC campus.
Even during the pandemic, the BAC was able to fulfill its mission through their Flatbed Concert Series, drive-in movies and virtual classes. In the past two years, the BAC also underwent a $250,000 renovation to make the facilities more sustainable for the future.
Lopez says “Complacency is death to an art organization so my hope is that the BAC continues to grow and evolve, challenge assumptions, open minds and keep doing things that people of all ages want to be a part of, which is our responsibility in presenting art to our community."
The Brewery Arts Center’s board of directors has developed a search committee for Lopez’s replacement.