It’s been 65 years, but don’t expect the Sedona Arts Center to retire anytime soon.

SAC celebrated its 65th anniversary on Wednesday, June 6, with a performance by the blues band Big Daddy D and The Dynamites, food and artist demonstrations. The center’s mission to bring culture to the red rocks will continue with an anniversary exhibition and upcoming programming as it looks toward 2028. 

“It was really a fun night,” SAC CEO Julie Richard said. “I talked to more people last Wednesday than I had at any of our other Celebrate Sedona events. There were some people who came from Phoenix and Scottsdale specifically for it because their parents had been involved in the Arts Center, and they had been involved in the Arts Center years ago.” 

The 65th Anniversary Exhibition featuring commemorative photos and artwork related to SAC’s history can be viewed at the center’s Special Exhibitions Gallery for the rest of June, on Friday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.

“We didn’t want this year to go without making note of this milestone,” Richard said. “I had a couple of staff members who were interested in doing the research. So we went through all of our files and pulled this together … and it’ll be easier to update going forward.”

There will be more opportunities to celebrate. On Wednesday, June 21, at 9 a.m., SAC and the Sedona Red Rocks Rotary Club will join the Sedona Public Library for cake and a toast at the library to celebrate that all three organizations are celebrating their 65th anniversary this year.

The number 65 will be the theme for all of the SAC exhibits this year.

“Our first exhibit in September is going to be a numbers exhibit,” Richard said. “We are asking artists to interpret what number or numbers is important to them and put something together … We’re doing a contemporary surrealism exhibit in the fall, and that’s a nod back to our roots.”

SAC has also received permission from the estate of Sedona-based artist Joella Jean Mahoney for a show and sale of her work at the end of the season. Mahoney was highly regarded for her use of oils in dramatic largescale landscapes and her work is currently on display in a retrospective at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff until November.

“A lot of her work is in storage in the Village of Oak Creek,” Richard said. “We’ll be going through the pieces that are left after the Museum of Northern Arizona [selects] a few. We’ll take 40 pieces and do that exhibit at the end of the year, that’s also a nod to our history.”

For a preview of the Mahoney exhibit, patrons can view her painting “Grand Canyon” at the 65th anniversary exhibit.

“The welcoming community I find at the Sedona Arts Center nourishes my life and my art. SAC gives me the opportunity to learn, teach, socialize and gives me a place to exhibit my paintings,” Mahoney wrote on the exhibit card for “Grand Canyon”:“SAC is the Heart of Sedona. In 1951, Nassan Gobran, sculptor and founder of the SAC, told me that he saw a need for an arts center like Tanglewood in Lennox, Mass. This center would provide nourishment and enrichment to culture-starved residents and visitors. An arts center would also identify Sedona as a serious art environment.” 

Gobran and others formed Canyon Kiva in 1958. In 1961, they changed the name to the Sedona Arts Center.