Become a Member Today!

The mission of Choose Cohoes for Art (CCfA) is to support art and artists in Cohoes, to create community awareness of the arts, and to foster cultural vitality by hosting or promoting art-related events in the greater Cohoes area. We need members who are artists committed to bringing their art to the public.

We need members who are patrons of the arts to support our artists. We could even use two or three board members who know how to run an organization, promote an organization and its events, find grants and/or donors willing and able to support art in Cohoes.

With our 11th Cohoes Artist Showcase we are kicking off a membership drive seeking artists and patrons. Anybody who joins during the initial drive will be considered a charter member which will give them membership for the remainder of 2022 and all of 2023. In subsequent years their dues will be due January 1. Artist members will receive free entry to one of our shows per year. All members will receive our quarterly newsletter.

Currently membership levels are:

1) Senior / Student $25

2) Individual $35

3) Family/Household $50

4) Business (or corporate) $100 to $500

Membership levels and benefits will change as we grow and learn more of our community needs.

We hope you will be able to join us as we continue to grow and share our love of the arts with Cohoes and local community!

Choose Cohoes for Art, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.

Click here for a fillable PDF membership application form.

You can fill out the PDF and email it to us at Info@ChooseCohoesForArt.org
Or you can print and fill it out by hand and mail it to us at Choose Cohoes for Art, 60 Remsen Street, Cohoes, NY, 12047

You can pay your dues by clicking on the PayPal donate button below
Or you can mail a check to us at Choose Cohoes for Art,

About Choose Cohoes for Art

For ten years we have organized the Cohoes Artist Showcase (CAS). For the first three years, to
participate you had to live, work, or go to school in Cohoes. For the fourth year, to broaden our
reach and bring more art and artists to Cohoes, we expanded to allow entrants from the three
counties that include or touch Cohoes – i.e. Albany, Saratoga, and Rensselaer counties. For the
ninth CAS we expanded to include Schenectady County. The tenth was made a virtual event due
to COVID. Along the way we also hosted two evening art gala events.

One of our founding members, Lise Toch, was a strong advocate of art education and we
established a fund in her honor. The Lise Toch Creative Arts Education Fund raises money
through donations and a silent auction at our annual CAS. The fund has been used to do things
like support music students wanting to attend band camp, the staging of a student written play
at the Cohoes Music Hall, and fiscal support for a veterans’ art group.

All our activities to date have been organized and staged by a small group of people, all of
whom became board members when we incorporated. The events have been hosted in
donated space, some for a couple of years in an empty store front on Remsen Street. After
seeing the storefront space at the second CAS, a business rented the space and we then moved
to a church that was being rehabilitated as a wedding venue. Wedding business ramped up at
that location and finding a six-day opening became a stretch. We need two days to set up, three
days for the show, and one day to clean up after. We then moved to the Cohoes Music Hall and
finding a large enough empty slot in their off season was often tricky, making our logistics more
challenging.

We have ambitious ideas how we can expand and improve our presence to better meet our
vision. We have found a permanent home that we can call our own, at A Space for Art. We will
not have to scramble to find event venues. We will be able to hold more events, shows, galas,
classes, cooperative activities with other Cohoes-based art groups and businesses, etc. To move
forward with these things will require a substantial increase in our efforts to raise operational
funds, and we are working on ways to do that. A first step is to establish membership beyond
the current nine board members, so please consider joining us today!