Mid-Missouri Arts Alliance to close and disband at end of 2025

The Mid-Missouri Arts Alliance will be disbanding and closing its storefront gallery in downtown Ashland at the end of the year.

Mid-Missouri Arts Alliance Board Secretary Marsha Taylor confirmed the closing in an email. The organization was not able to renew its current lease or find another affordable location to continue.

“If you’ve ever been to one of the well attended openings at Mid-Missouri Arts Alliance, you know what a wonderful treasure it is,” Linda Pluschke wrote in a letter to the editor published Nov. 12.

“You’ll find groups of local folks outside chatting and laughing,” she wrote. “Sometimes live music can be heard drifting out the door, while inside buzzes new ideas and creativity.”

The arts alliance has brought together experienced, aspiring and curious artists in the community since 2012.

“It took a tremendous amount of work of some very dedicated people to make that dream manifest,” Pluschke said.

Tracy Titmus, one of the three founding artists, posted on Facebook on Nov. 16, and said she had sadly received word that the board decided to dissolve the arts alliance after learning the group could not renew its current storefront studio lease.

“What a truly sad day,” she wrote. “I feel like I’m losing a dear friend or family member.”

The organization’s current building, located at 115 E. Broadway, has been sold to a new owner who plans to use the space. The board has been unable to obtain a new, affordable rental space.

According to KBIA, the group incorporated as a nonprofit in 2015 and found an accessible studio space in Ashland.

Titmus said she never expected their “little endeavor” would last almost 10 years.

The studio has served as a place for artists — young, elderly and in between — to gather, learn, grow, find support and pursue their dreams in the arts through classes, workshops, community events, receptions and rental studios.

Mid-Missouri Arts Alliance Board President Ellen Ehrhardt encouraged the community to support its artists during the last month before the gallery’s closure by shopping the holiday sales for “unheard of bargains on art and artful things.”

The gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays, as well as by appointment.

Ehrhardt also said in the email newsletter that the arts alliance gallery will be open until 8:30 p.m. for “A Very Ashland Christmas” on Dec. 12.

“We’re looking forward to seeing those who can stop by (Dec. 12) to say goodbye, so we can say ‘Thank you for nearly 10 years of fun and laughter and social connection that comes along with expressing your creative side,’” she said. Taylor said the Arts Alliance will donate the remaining funds it has at the close of the year to organizations in the community. [what orgs?]

“The friendships that have been forged over that time are priceless to me. I had flourished as an artist with so much encouragement and guidance from that tribe,” Titmus said on Facebook.

“(The) Mid-Missouri Arts Alliance will forever be in my heart,” she wrote.