When did art start?

Half a million years ago somebody engraved an image on a shell. A few hundred thousand years later, a neanderthal seems to have tinkered with eight eagle talons to fashion jewelry. A hundred thousand years later, people were painting on cave walls.

Forty thousand years later — 1987 to be exact — musician and composer Faye Ringel, sculptor and photographer Peter Liebert, painter Rita Dawley, arts activists Lottie Scott and Marcia Heath, and a handful of other artists and appreciators decided that Norwich, Connecticut, needed to get its arts organized with some kind of registry of artists and a calendar of events.

The group founded the Norwich Arts Council and soon fell into a bigger dream — a home for the arts in downtown Norwich.

They found such a place in a 19th-century temperance hall at 60 Broadway, just below City Hall. It was a perfect spot for what would become Norwich Arts Center. It had two storefronts, rentable office space upstairs, and a theater — or rather, a wreck of a theater — on the top floor. The stage had held everything from temperance meetings to vaudeville acts to boxing matches.

The ground floor had served as a beauty salon, a coffeeshop and a bar. But it was empty in 1987. Marcia Heath’s husband, Dr. Brian Heath, owned it and was willing to lease the place, and later sell it, at below-market prices.

Market price in downtown Norwich was then and still is a questionable issue. Real estate isn’t necessarily worth what it’s worth. Businesses come and go, alas more often closing than opening. Magnificent buildings remain empty.

The plan was to open an arts center co-op, a place where all forms of art — visual, musical, theatrical — by all sorts of artists — old, young, amateur, professional, demonstrably crazy, marginally sane — could carry on the very human urge to create beauty.

With some funding by the state and the city, the new Norwich Arts Center began to take shape. With a major donation by the widow of Donald Oat, who had owned The Bulletin back when it was a substantive newspaper, the theater was brought back to life. NAC became a regional center for the arts.

Art’s inexplicable mystery

Art is an intrinsically human urge. It is part of what distinguishes humans from other species. Art touches the human soul. It brings us together. It hints of truth, beauty, love and the fragility of life. We don’t understand where it comes from or how it touches us so deeply. Part of the beauty of art is in its inexplicable mystery.

Whatever it is that’s been passed down to us since neanderthal times, it has been holding its own in downtown Norwich for 35 years. Despite the economic shifts from downtowns to malls and then to the internet, Norwich Arts Center has stood as an enduring pillar of the downtown area.

Among the many amazing aspects of NAC, besides its amazing art, amazing music and amazing theater productions, is the fact that it has no paid employees. As commercial establishments come and go, it’s the volunteer not-for-profit that stays open decade after decade.

And while volunteers have been sustaining NAC for 35 years, it is only for lack of more volunteers that the organization is unable to expand. The will is there but not the hands. Faye Ringel, who was NAC’s first president and now is a co-president, would like to see NAC expand to offer programs for children, classes for the community and more special events.

Today, NAC’s Blues on Broadway and Miss Lottie’s Café series of performances draws audiences from 100 miles around. Donald L. Oat Theater offers opportunity for award-winning playwrights, actors and directors. Two galleries present astonishing work by local and regional artists who might otherwise go unknown by their own communities.

One of those galleries is reserved for monthly exhibitions dedicated to either an elected artist in the NAC organization or a given theme to which any artist may submit work.

The other gallery rents space to artists, artisans and authors.

The First Friday of each month launches a new exhibit with a reception at 6 p.m. The galleries are open Thursdays through Saturdays, noon to 4 p.m.

On Friday, May 27, NAC celebrates its 35 years with a get-together of artists, volunteers, community members and local leaders. It’s by invitation only, but anyone interested in attending can request an invitation by email to smallyvette1952@gmail.com.

For more information, see norwicharts.org.

Glenn Alan Cheney is a writer, translator and managing editor of New London Librarium. He can be reached at glenn@NLLibrarium.com.