Firehouse Art Center

Mission

The Norman Firehouse Art Center enriches our community by offering the highest quality visual arts education, experiences, and exhibitions.

History

Since 1970, the Norman Firehouse Art Center, Inc., a non-profit organization, has served Norman and surrounding communities with visual art classes and gallery exhibitions of the highest quality. Our faculty provides instruction in ceramics, sculpture, painting and drawing, jewelry construction, stone carving, fused and slumped glass and more, in well-equipped classrooms.

Additional History

The Firehouse Art Center (FAC) is a non-profit 501(c) (3) corporation located at 444 South Flood Avenue, Norman, Oklahoma 73069. The FAC was founded in 1970 as a community arts center, operating out of a vacated, city-owned building, which previously served as a fire station. The facility has since transformed to house highly professional working visual arts studios, which now accommodate both adult and youth art education programming, a permanent gift shop, and a dedicated exhibition gallery space. As an organization, the Firehouse has become the foremost provider of art education programming in Norman’s public elementary schools, and has invested over $230,000 in elementary school outreach programs, which have reached almost 16,000 students in the past eight years. The FAC additionally serves as partner to many community events, and reaches an average of 14,000 individuals every year through the organization’s extensive breadth of programming.

The Firehouse Art Center, along with granting partners the Oklahoma Arts Council, the Norman Arts Council, and Allied Arts, continues to build a cultural infrastructure to strengthen the arts in Norman and its surrounding communities. The FAC is reinvesting in the state and striving to provide the experiences essential to developing a community rich in cultural experiences, by keeping programming costs low and providing free visual arts opportunities. By offering equal access to educational, high quality visual art opportunities for everyone, regardless of their socioeconomic background, the Firehouse is laying the groundwork for generations of individuals that have the knowledge, appreciation, and personal investment in the arts to become advocates for the future of the arts in the state of Oklahoma. As an arts leader in the Norman community, the Firehouse plans to continue advocating for excellence in visual arts education and support for professional and student artists through expanded and enhanced programming.