Your Destination for Art & Music

February 1st & 2nd

50 Years of BeauSoleil
Thursday, February 1 & Friday, February 2, 7:30pm
Louisiana Crossroads series, presented by First Horizon

BeauSoleil, avec Michael Doucet, marks the fiftieth year of its remarkable career with two star-studded concerts!

Each performance features an array of guest artists including Dickie Landry, Don Vappie, Mitchell Reed, JoEl Sonnier, Gary Newman, Matthew Doucet, Tiff Lamson, Annick Colbert, Steve Conn, and Chad Viator, all of whom have guest performed with BeauSoleil during the course of the band’s five decades of making music.

Tickets are going fast!

BeauSoleil has won numerous awards including two Grammys and fourteen nominations, has played at Super Bowl XXXI, the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter, and on multiple episodes of “Prairie Home Companion”. 

Their music has been in movie and TV soundtracks including for “The Big Easy”, “Belizaire the Cajun”, “Treme”, and most recently “I Don’t Feel at Home in the World Anymore”.

In addition to the two February performances, AcA presents a retrospective view exhibiting photos and memorabilia from the half century of BeauSoleil’s career in the Coca-Cola Studio gallery.

This exhibition is on view starting January 13th for Second Saturday ArtWalk.

Second Saturday ArtWalk - January 13 - presented by Jones Walker

Last look at Main Gallery exhibition - Martin Payton: Legacy of Form
& Side Gallery exhibition Ralph Schexnaydre: Translating the Sun

PLUS 3 new exhibitions opening:
- 50 Years of BeauSoleil: Memorabilia & Archives - Coca-Cola Studio
- Ben Koch - Mallia Galleria
- The Louisianais.e - AcA Café

Martin Payton: Legacy of Form
On view in the Main Gallery through January 13, 2024

Martin Payton (b.1948, New Orleans) comes from a family of accomplished New Orleanian musicians and holds at the core of his artistic practice the styles of improvisation and African Polyrhythms embedded in New Orleans Jazz. Payton’s sculptures resemble silhouettes suggestive of traditional African forms with a minimalist, modern personality. 

Ralph Schexnaydre: Translating the Sun
On view in the Side Gallery through January 13, 2024

Ralph J. Schexnaydre Jr.'s work consist of lumen and cyanotype prints. The images are created using plant materials collected along Bayou Teche, local roadsides, and on the property of his current residence.
These common plants are cut and reassembled in which the components are transformed from our “normal” descriptions of what we know to something more celestial, more mysterious, and spiritual.

50 Years of BeauSoleil: Memorabilia & Archives
On view in the Coca-Cola Studio
Saturday, January 13 through Saturday, February 10, 2024

This exhibit celebrates half a century of the beloved BeauSoliel avec Michael Doucet with various forms of memoribilia & archives.
Decades of touring, many albums and awards have solidified BeauSoleil as legendary local band.

During the span of this exhibit, BeauSoleil will also put on a fantastic two-night performance!

Ben Koch
On view in the Mallia Galleria
Saturday, January 13 through Saturday, February 10, 2024

This exhibit features paintings on found glass windows, papier maché sculpture & drawings all from this eclectic local artist.

The Louisianais.e
On view in the AcA Café
now through Saturday, February 10, 2024

The Louisianais.e is an exhibition organized by the Nous Foundation that imagines a future periodical in 2050.

Designed in the style of The New Yorker, these covers feature original artworks created by a diverse array of artists from all around Louisiana. Each cover creatively interprets the future of French and Creole cultures in Louisian, 25 years from now.

Comedy Club Returns

Returning for its second year, the Comedy Club series presents well-known stand-up comedians from across the country. This series is presented in partnership with Lafayette Comedy.

Join us Thursday, January 25th at 7:30pm!

Laurie Kilmartin is a comedian and an Emmy-nominated/WGA Award-winning writer for CONAN.

She has also written for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, The Late Late Show, and Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn.

She has performed standup on CONAN, The Late Late Show with James Corden, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Comedy Central and Showtime.

Her standup special, 45 Jokes About My Dead Dad made Vulture’s list of Top Ten Comedy Specials of 2016.

Tickets $20, $25, & $30

Opportunities for Artists

$$ Grant Alert $$
Submissions for ArtSpark grants are NOW OPEN!

ArtSpark is a competitive grant program supporting individual artists in Acadiana.

These grants offer assistance to emerging, mid-career, and mature artists for specific, short-term projects with a component of community outreach and a focus on the artists’ and/or communities economic development with the support of Opportunity Machine.

New this year - information, guidelines, and application are now available in Spanish! Check it out: https://acadianacenterforthearts.org/opportunities-for-artists/artspark/

The ArtSpark program is committed to ensuring Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility, with particular focus on Black artists, Indigenous artists, artists of color, as well as those artists with disabilities, in order to expand their bodies of work as professionals.

Funding for this program is made possible by Lafayette Economic Development Authority and National Endowment for the Arts, and is administered by the Acadiana Center for the Arts.

Please contact AcA Community Development Staff to discuss project ideas before submitting.

Are you interested in applying for the 2024 ArtSpark artist grant but aren't sure where to start?

Attend an ArtSpark Office Hours session to have all of your questions answered by AcA's Community Development manager, Anna Kojevnikov! Anna will provide mentorship to help you write a strong grant application and educate participants about the ArtSpark grant.

This session will be held in the AcA Café on January 17th, 2024 at 5:30pm.

Learn more about ArtSpark

Professional Development for Teachers

Professional Development Workshop for teachers of grades 3–12
Presented by Darrell Bourque, PhD., Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette

See! Think! Wonder! In this workshop, participants will view paintings in the AcA’s Main Gallery exhibit, “In Medias Res: How One Story Becomes Another Story,” and turn oral stories into written text.

We will investigate how images can be used in the classroom for students to develop a plot, narrative and character dialogue in creative writing. 

Register here!