SLOMA’s future should include the community that started it

We read with interest your San Luis Obispo Museum of Art (SLOMA) into the future article (“SLOMA is raising funds for an audacious expansion,” Dec. 18). As you noted, the museum has a long and complex origin story. However, an important part of that history was overlooked.

Before the changes made in 2011, many local artists and art groups regularly met at the SLO Art Center and used its facilities for exhibitions, presentations, critiques, and community gatherings. When the center transitioned into a museum, it no longer served as a hub that provided the community with access to local artists and adult art education. No alternative venue emerged to fill that role, and the resulting sense of loss continues to be felt today.

With the plans as currently presented, it appears that local art and artists may once again be excluded. While K-12 students will have opportunities, the artists and art groups that were instrumental in the center’s inception seem absent from the vision for the future.

As artists who live and work in this community, we welcome efforts to enrich and expand the arts in San Luis Obispo. We believe a more vibrant, diverse, and engaging arts scene could be achieved by including local artists and arts organizations in SLOMA’s expansion plans. We hope the museum’s leadership shares this view. This moment offers an opportunity to begin a new chapter—one that reintegrates the community’s artists for the benefit of all. 

We urge SLOMA’s leadership to recognize this moment as a chance to rebuild trust, restore connection, and honor the artists who helped shape the institution’s earliest identity. By embracing local creators as partners in its future, the museum can cultivate a richer, more inclusive cultural landscape—one that truly reflects the community it serves.

Carl Berney, Joan Brown, Kay Burnett, Charlotte D’Aigle, Anna Easter, Bruce Everett, Jan French, Larry Kappen, Blaire Kilbey, Tracy Paz, Tom Peck, Dianne Ravin, Colleen Ray, Denise Schryver, and Randy and Lisa Stromsoe

San Luis Obispo County artists

This article appears in Jan 1-8, 2026.