Ocean City Arts Center is a place for the individual to gain an appreciation of mankind’s diversity through the visual and performing arts.  OCAC strives to offer creative opportunities that appeal to all ages and interests, all people in the local and surrounding South Jersey communities.   

Our facility offers an inspiring setting that includes three large studios with northern light and a dance studio, music room, pottery studio, reference library and darkroom. Forty-plus weekly classes are offered in five to six sessions yearly, as well as frequent one-day workshops for adults, teens, and children.  To ensure all who seek the arts, scholarship assistance is available.  Current class offerings include watercolor, oils, pastels, drawing, folk art, basket weaving, stained glass, pottery, fabric art, sculpture, dance, (ballet, tap, jazz, ballroom, Latin, & dance exercise) photography, performing arts, Tai Chi, piano, harp, guitar, and drum lessons. Our summer art camp program continued in 2007 to be maxed to waiting lists with themes such as Modern Art, 3-D Art, Cubism, Passport to Art (a global art trip) Fun w/ Drawing & Cartooning, Drawing Express, (first time drawing for preschool age) Musical Theatre, Film & TV, Guitar Camp, & Creative Drama Camps. A continuation of our seasonal children’s workshops on Saturdays (Pumpkin Painting Party, Santa’s Studio & more) also were maxed to waiting lists, as these are affordable $5 workshops utilized as promotional opportunities for the Arts Center. 

Each month we present a new exhibit featuring regional and national artists of various mediums.  Each exhibit opens with a “Meet the Artist” reception that adds a personal dimension to the experience.  OCAC provides exposure to major metropolitan galleries through affordable museum bus trips to Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. four to five times a year.  These are also a sell-out and have earned a faithful following. 

 Through our education programs we not only provide a learning venue for students, but also employment for artisans to share their talents through teaching. Many of our teaching artisans gain additional exposure and income through our Gallery Gift Shop. Available for purchase are a variety of unique items by area artisans including jewelry, prints, paintings, blown glass, hand-painted scarves, pottery, stained glass, baskets, sculpture, poetry books, and much more.  

OCAC's most popular annual events include our Juried Photography Show, Regional Juried Art Show, Holiday Open House Festival, and the nationally famous 45 year old Boardwalk Art Show.  This year’s Juried Photography Show totaled 233 entries; our Juried Art Show produced the fine art of 92 artists, 152 paintings submitted.  Our most popular event is the Boardwalk Art Show featuring fine arts from around the country and now even Canada at the height of the summer tourism season.  This show is truly an asset to Ocean City and Cape May County’s cultural tourism portfolio.  In addition to OCAC’s own activities and events, our facilities are utilized by fellow cultural and community organizations for rehearsals, performances, events and meetings. 

Special Events at the Arts Center are held periodically utilizing our twin studios opened to one large space.  In June, 2007 the Ocean City Free Public Library partnered with OCAC funding Pulitzer Prize Poet Paul Muldoon to the Arts Center for a poetry reading.  The room was maxed into the gallery space.  This event exemplifies just one of the partnering projects with like organizations.  Other partnering projects have been implemented and very successful with organizations including the local schools in surrounding communities (mainly Cape May and Atlantic County), Caring for Kids, Community Art Projects, (C.A.P.), Calico ‘N Cotton, City of Ocean City, County of Cape May Youth Shelter, Amnesty International, Ocean City Research Club, Ocean City Colony Club, and colleges. 

Unique to 2007 as newly formed programs is a preschool age program called Drawing Express.  This concept, designed by an experienced faculty member is an effort to train the early aged child the very basic concepts of drawing through a special technique.  The program includes a parent or older partner aiding the child, and forming a secure bond through the guidance of the teacher.  Another addition to the progress of the Ocean City Arts Center is the advanced Guitar Students Ocean City Arts Center Band.  The guitar instructor has embarked on the responsibility of application of the arts with a group of his advanced students.  Their talents have been taken to area restaurants during weekend evenings as an enhancement to small businesses, and an opportunity for the students to begin to grasp the realities of entertainment.  Our dance program has expanded with four new forms of dance, and three new teachers, including Ballroom and Latin dance, and the addition of teen classes, adult ballet, and two special classes scheduled specifically for home schooled children on Fridays.   

Administratively the Arts Center utilizes any and all human resources available through different sources:  Along with our paid staff members and teachers and regular volunteers, as well as our Board of Trustees, OCAC values a strong relationship with the Cape May County Probation office of Community Service.  At a minimum, OCAC employs at least three, at our greatest eight, community service personnel selected to help us by the county’s strong program.  We find these individuals open and greatly helpful to any tasks of which we ask them. In addition, our relationships with regional colleges and universities grow as they have placed scholarship and community service students to us for academic enhancement.  These bright students are highly productive and helpful. Additionally, we have now added yet another college intern to our two already in 2006 and 2007.  Interns are placed strategically into our weekly & monthly schedules in order to have most enhancing artful experiences for their academic benefit.  From all of the programs mentioned above, OCAC remains grateful and mindful of the need to continue good relationships with the organizations providing us these “win-win” opportunities. 

OCAC has also recently enhanced the committee of the board of trustees on Memberships.  The committee chair, along with the Center’s Marketing staff is forming a membership campaign and is actively choosing the specific targets of the campaign. 

 ''To engage the individuals and communities of Southern New Jersey in the kind of participation in the visual and performing arts that leads to individual and collective fulfillment." 

The mission of the Ocean City Arts Center stated above can be interpreted at this point in the organizations rich history as a sound, secure bridge:  a bridge connecting the individual to others, to the arts, and to better life which means a better society.