A tribute to Nettie Marie Jones and her vision to build, and give to the residents of the Adirondacks, a year round Visual and Performing Arts Center. This facility was made possible by Mrs. Alton Jones Foundation. Doors opened at the original Center For Music Drama & Art on December 29, 1972 with a gala concert with Musica Aterna Orchestra and Menahem Pressler Pianist. The art center’s benefacto
r Nettie Marie Jones with the music associtation President Enid Darlington welcomed the audience to the new art center 353 seat theater. Jones expressed the art center was for all the residents of Lake Placid and the Adirondacks. She warmly welcomed everyone to come to the new art center to attend and enjoy the many cultural arts events. An exhibition in the new Gallery titled 2 Men & 2 Women was on display and feature four artists from the Adirondack Mountian region. A large component of the art center was the Lake Placid School of Art that operated a year round art school for full-time and part-time students and childern from 1971 thru 1980. Classes in Printmaking, Ceramics, Kiln Building, Photography, a Video Art Studio, Painting, Drawing were primary offerings. A Fine Arts Library with a collection of approximately 10,000 titles and 50 periodicals supported the art school, students and the Adirondack community. The Lake Placid School of Art two year Diploma Program was a college accredited school and Licensed by the New York State Department of Education as a post-secondary school of art. The Lake Placid School of Art was abruptly closed in 1980 after the 1980 Olympics by vote of the then Board of Directors for financial reasons. The Center for Music, Drama & Art is now know as Lake Placid Center for the Arts. The original CMDA and LPCA have presented art classes, art exhibitions, musical theatre, dramatic theatre, concerts, dance, dance classes, seminars, guest artists, educational programming for children and varied cultural events for four decades. Funding originally came from the art center’s benefactor Nettie Marie Jones for the art center buildings with donations for the operations from the W. Cultural Arts programs were funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts & Humanities as well as various foundation grants. An Endowment Fund was set up in 1973 and recieves generious grants from individuals and has received matching funds from ACT. The Center for Music Drama & Art, now know as the Lake Placid Center for the Arts; has operated visual arts & performing arts programing continuously since it opened in 1972.
