Art Center Morro Bay

Art Center Morro Bay is the purple building on Main Street with Morro Rock painted across its side, and it has been the creative heart of the town since the Morro Bay Art Association founded it in 1951. Run entirely by volunteers, it houses two spacious galleries and a classroom at 835 Main St, and it stands as one of the largest venues on the Central Coast for exhibiting original fine art by local artists.

The galleries turn over eight exhibits a year, a mix of member shows and special juried exhibitions that have included the Pastel Society of the West Coast, with award-winning national and international artists on the walls a few doors down from the town’s coffee shops. Exhibits and artist receptions are free and open to the public, and the gallery is open daily from noon to 4 p.m.

The programming runs deeper than the walls. Free art demonstrations happen the second Monday of each month from 3 to 5 p.m. Drop-in figure drawing runs Wednesday evenings from 6 to 9 p.m. for a small fee that covers the model. Adult classes and workshops cycle through the year, spanning plein-air painting, portraiture, sketching, digital drawing, clay sculpture, and jewelry, and a summer art camp takes kids over six. The center’s Business Art Program places local artists’ work in businesses around town, which is why so many Morro Bay walls look the way they do.

The association also produces Morro Bay Art in the Park, one of the longest-running outdoor art shows in California, held in Morro Bay Park over Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day weekends. It doubles as the organization’s most important fundraiser, sustaining the scholarships and programs that keep all of this going.

Exhibit openings, demonstrations, and workshops land regularly on the event calendar, where you can see what else is happening around town.