Emerson Center for the Arts & Culture

This building whispers stories from the young and old. I have wanted to check out Emerson arts center for two years. Last week I attended a venue at The Verge. Comedian, Aaron Foster, was a joy for me and my family! The art along the halls of Emerson is captivating. I had no idea there was a pizza venue inside! I will return there to take a class, and perhaps get more involved with the co-op opportunities available.

What a great art center to visit awesome paintings, sculptures, photos, a Must See place when visiting Bozeman, Montana. One of my favorite artists there is Rod Zullo, his sculptures and relief pictures are Awesome. Not to mention his out of this world chocolate bars displaying his sculpture mastery..

I've been to a few Ski Films here and its been a blast!!! Need more Ski films to get hyped for this season 😊

This building whispers stories from the young and old. I have wanted to check out Emerson arts center for two years. Last week I attended a venue at The Verge.

Excellent adaptive re-use of a former elementary school. Exhibit spaces, performance spaces, studios, meeting rooms, and an excellent restaurant. Lots of folks engaged in eating, spectating, making art, and browsing the halls the evening I was there. Ralph Waldo Emerson would be proud to be associated with this place!

We went and saw a drag show here. IT WAS SO COOL! Can't wait until the next one! Only problem is that there was no shade, but otherwise it's great!

We were in the building for a film, but really enjoyed looking around otherwise. Cool artist co-op and much local talent displayed! I bought some local "cow art"...love it!

I'm currently taking a pottery class here. At my old town, classes were constantly filling up and never available, so it's awesome to finally have an open class. I like how it's in an old school, it makes the vibes really fun.

The Executive Director has a management style that includes belittling others, yelling, cursing, and randomly assigning arbitrary rental fees at the last minute. Some of the horror stories from community members are published in the "Save the Emerson" petition circulating on the internet. In the petition comments, the executive director's behavior is described as disrespectful, unprofessional, mean, caustic, abusive, unbearable, unsupportive, righteous, competitive, unfriendly, bullying, awful, extremely rude, difficult, unhealthy, vindictive, and vile. As stated in the petition, tenants and community members feel disrespected, humiliated, slighted, uncomfortable, censored, fearful oof retaliation, intimidated, insulted, fearful of retribution by the executive director. The executive director is known to use racial slurs, slander, and generally abusive behavior on a daily basis according to the petition comments. She is also known to viciously scold children and use vulgar language in front of them.

Reggie Watts was a torture last night. Gave us his F + at 100%. Never eat a pizza from the Emerson building it might turn you into a salty beyot**. Still woke up to the mind, pounding headache of last night event.

There is always something interesting and fun here! Still haven't gone to all the art studios. We did go to a local dance groups' show and loved the experience!

I don't even know where to begin with this place. It's not what I was expecting when I found "Cultural Center" in the Yelp search feature. But I kind of like and appreciate the useful retooling of an old school. It seems fitting as you wander the halls and come across all kinds of art galleries and realize this is also a spot for local cultural activities for the community. This place really delivers. It's two floors of amazing art in all kinds of media. If you're in the area and have time, this building also hosts art classes, films, and different exhibitions and holiday theme events. The restaurant, Emerson Grill is only open in the evenings after the shops have closed, and that's a pity. With the number of visitors into the shops during my visit, they could probably do quite well if they were open for lunch. The Emerson center is located off the main street but is worth finding and worth exploring. Besides, it will give you a break from the main street craziness.

The two stars are for the galleries. I never actually went into a gallery but they look like they have some really neat things, but I assume I can't afford any of it so I just walk past the windows and dream of winning the lottery that I don't buy tickets for. I took a class at the Emerson. I paid good money and drove +80 miles round trip for each class. The class gets zero stars. The system of registering is awful. I registered online, a month in advance. Had to call to pay with a credit card. I got a receipt. Never got an email after. No class reminder, no information at all if we need to bring anything, where in the maze of hallways the classrooms are, nothing. Worst (best for Emerson and the class instructor), no follow-up review survey. The class was titled "Drawing with Oils." The class had absolutely no oil specific instruction. I believe some of the students never picked up anything oil-based. Most of the tasks required simply charcoal. Pages and pages of charcoal gestural drawings. I have a really cool Sharpie-marker drawing of a face, the task was to draw a grid over an image, and you know, draw it bigger. Yes, there were cattle markers and oil cray-pas out on the table, along with markers, colored pencils, charcoal. No instruction or help on how to get different textures, how to mix colors to avoid mud, what order to color in a picture, oils to blend, etc. But we learned all about three point perspective (needed a pencil or marker for that project). This class should have been called "Intro to Drawing" or they need to find an instructor that actually knows how to draw with and instruct oil-based drawing. Again, let me repeat, "Drawing with Oils" had no oil specific instruction, nor were any of the projects/tasks/assignments asked to be done in oils--most of the class agendas were actually impossible to do in oils (or maybe they were possible, but we weren't taught how!). I stuck it out hoping that the instructor was just building a foundation and the next class would finally have some oils--nope, never happened. About half the students stopped attending class--do members get a refund if they quit or something? I'm a stay-at-home mom, our family is single income. My husband feels badly that I'm stuck at home with two young kids all day, so he encourages me to get out and take some classes like this. I literally sat and cried in my car after class on more than one occasion because I felt I wasted so much of our precious money. I probably would have learned more about drawing with oils if I took the $130-ish I spent on the class and bought a bunch of cray-pas and paper and watched youtube videos instead.

a cool place. recently saw built to spill here, which was a very good venue for a rock act. in between bands, i wandered the center, where there is art everywhere. it's an old school that's been repurposed into this cultural center. the auditorium for the concert was your basic seats on the floor, balcony up top, main stage kind of place. it had its outside lobbies for the meet and greet with the bands. hot and sweaty because the night was hot and sweaty. the hallways and rooms filled with art were from many forms. my favorite was the old school vending machine that dispensed art. yep, for 5 bucks, you pull on a lever and out comes art. so, if you have time to kill in bozeman, check it out. if built to spill comes to your town, check that out, too.