Exhibits

The Community Gallery is FREE and open to the public. You are warmly invited to visit.

You will find the Community Gallery on the street level (first floor) adjacent to the Octagon Shop. The Gallery observes the same hours as the Shop.

You are welcome to join in gallery events, such as artist talks. Sign up for the newsletter or follow us on Facebook for announcements. Please note that the gallery is closed during exhibit changes.

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Past Events › Exhibits

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May 2018

Empty Dresses PAULA STREETER

May 25, 2018 - June 30, 2018
Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Avenue
Ames, IA 50010 United States
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Empty Dresses PAULA STREETER May 25 - June 30, 2018 COMMUNITY GALLERY Empty Dresses as a concept was conceived half a lifetime ago while attending the estate auction of an early Swedish immigrant to the Midwest. Among the many hand crafted items from the latter half of the nineteenth century were two intricately and nearly identically embroidered, grayed with age, christening gowns that decades earlier were wrapped in brown paper and bound with string.  Many auction attendees commented how the…

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July 2018

Grilling Ice LEE RAINBOTH

July 6, 2018 - August 11, 2018
Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Avenue
Ames, IA 50010 United States
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Grilling Ice LEE RAINBOTH July 6 - August 11, 2018 COMMUNITY GALLERY This exhibit examines the ways that matters of mortality and masculinity manifest themselves in a contemporary Haitian context. Too often for young men in Haiti the way that they express their masculinity becomes a matter of survival itself. In an environment where simply surviving daily life can become an act of rebellion, young Haitian men end up constructing layers of masculine identity to protect themselves against the near…

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August 2018

Tales from a Ghost Town JOANNE ALBERDA

August 17, 2018 @ 12:00 am - September 29, 2018 @ 12:00 am
Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Avenue
Ames, IA 50010 United States
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Tales from a Ghost Town JOANNE ALBERDA August 17 - September 29, 2018 COMMUNITY GALLERY Virginia City is a ghost town—the skeleton of a booming Montana gold mining camp in the late 19th century. As a museum it is the record of one of hundreds of get-rich-quick dramas related to the search for gold in the American West. Some buildings in the city and in the area around it have been abandoned and qualify as “ghosts.” When I was a…

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Artisans Roadtrip

August 17, 2018 - October 27, 2018
Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Avenue
Ames, IA 50010 United States
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ARTISANS ROADTRIP August 17 - October 27, 2018 SWEENEY GALLERY This year is the 15th Annual Artisans Road Trip. Artisans Road Trip invites you to travel Iowa's scenic byways and back roads looking for one-of-a-kind treasures.  Artisans will offer a rare glimpse into creative processes as they demonstrate their craft in personal and unique work spaces. Our mission is to promote a venue for established artisans to demonstrate their skills, exhibit and sell their original fine art via a self-guided studio tour through…

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September 2018

Aperture: The Biennial Juried Photography Exhibit 2018

September 14, 2018 - November 21, 2018
Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Avenue
Ames, IA 50010 United States
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Collage of sports images by McClanahan Studio

Aperture: The Biennial Juried Photography Exhibit 2018 Theme: Community Sports September 14 - November 21, 2018 Main Gallery We experience the world around us in flashes of action and emotion in the world of sports. From the youngest to the oldest members of our community, competitive games bring people together and spark movement and involvement. Photographers exercising their trigger finger are invited to submit their photographs highlighting athletes and athletic experiences in their lives. This exhibit is a companion to the…

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October 2018

Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street Exhibit: Hometown Teams

October 4, 2018 - November 11, 2018
Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Avenue
Ames, IA 50010 United States
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Smithsonian Institution's Museum on Main Street Exhibit Hometown Teams October 4 - November 10 MAIN GALLERY Our love of sports begins in our hometowns. We play them on ball fields and sandlots, on courts and on ice, in parks and playgrounds, even in the street. From pick-up games to organized leagues, millions of Americans of all ages play sports. Win or lose, we yearn to compete and play another day. If we’re not playing sports, we’re watching them. We sit…

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Worlds Apart BOGUMIL BRONKOWSKI

October 4, 2018 - November 10, 2018
Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Avenue
Ames, IA 50010 United States
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Worlds Apart by BOGUMIL BRONKOWSKI October 4 - November 10, 2018 COMMUNITY GALLERY My current body of work explores the concepts of struggle, place, and belonging. I immigrated to America at the age of nine; initially, no one told me that my family was permanently moving here. I boarded that international flight thinking that my family and I were coming for a vacation. It was devastating. I never said goodbye to many of my family and friends. I left behind everything…

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November 2018

Cairo, Illinois: Photographs & Enamels SARAH PERKINS & GWEN WALSTRAND

November 15, 2018 - December 21, 2018
Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Avenue
Ames, IA 50010 United States
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Cairo, Illinois: Photographs & Enamels by SARAH PERKINS & GWEN WALSTRAND November 15 - December 21, 2018 COMMUNITY GALLERY This work is a collaboration, of sorts, by Gwen Walstrand, photographer, and Sarah Perkins, metalsmith and enamelist. The works themselves are not collaborations, but instead are designed to be viewed together in order to have an impact and a narrative that neither could possess on its own. We are artists working in different media but with the same subject matter -- the…

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January 2019

Outside-In PACIA SALLOMI & ALEXANDRA ACKERMAN

January 12, 2019 - March 2, 2019
Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Avenue
Ames, IA 50010 United States

LOCATED IN THE COMMUNITY GALLERY (Street level) Artist Statement: Pacia Sallomi I began this series in 2010. In the beginning, I was focused on roundabouts or in French, rond-point, which came about because of an experience of being lost on back roads and small villages in the French countryside. I had begun to think about the way we structure the experience of getting from one place to another. The circular pathways of a roundabout are quite different cultural modalities of…

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February 2019

Octagonal: The All Media Exhibit

February 1, 2019 - March 30, 2019
Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Avenue
Ames, IA 50010 United States
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LOCATED IN MAIN GALLERY AND SWEENEY GALLERY (3rd floor) Octagonal: The All-Media Exhibit is the annual, juried all-media exhibition at the Octagon Center for the Arts in Ames, Iowa. Originally titled the Clay and Paper Show, the exhibit opened in 1968 to provide an opportunity to the central Iowa arts community. Over the past 51 years, the exhibit morphed over the decades to become the Clay, Fiber, Paper, Glass, Metal, Wood Exhibit that has featured hundreds of artists from dozens of states. The newest…

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