New Bedford Art Museum

Address
608 Pleasant St
New Bedford, MA 02740 United States Get Directions
Phone (508) 961-3072

Events at this venue

Today

  • Synergies: Hybrid Art

    New Bedford Art Museum 608 Pleasant St, New Bedford, MA, United States

    The New Bedford Art Museum presents Synergies: Hybrid Art, a juried exhibition of 19 artists working in all media. This exhibition highlights work that merges artistic disciplines, materials, and technologies to create innovative forms of expression. The exhibition is juried by Amy Lemaire & Nicolas Touron, an artist duo based in Brooklyn, NY, whose collaborative practice explores materiality, form, and the intersection of natural and constructed environments. Working across diverse media, their work bridges the disciplines of sculpture, glass, and installation, creating immersive visual narratives that challenge perception and engage the senses. JUROR’S STATEMENT Synergies: Hybrid Art brings together artists whose works operate through combination, transformation, and emergence. As collaborating artists and jurors, we were consistently drawn to practices that move beyond fixed categories—works existing between disciplines, materials, technologies, and ways of thinking. What emerged through the jurying process was not simply a survey of contemporary making, but a portrait of artists actively redefining artistic boundaries. To us, synergy suggests more than interdisciplinarity. It describes the moment when separate elements converge to create something newly alive—something that could not exist independently. Across the exhibition, materials, ideas, processes, and traditions intersect in unexpected ways: hand skills merge with digital technologies; craft […]

    $7 – $10

  • Summer Art Program

    New Bedford Art Museum 608 Pleasant St, New Bedford, MA, United States

    About The Program This summer, the New Bedford Art Museum invites young artists to take part in an 8 week creative experience designed for exploration, skill building, and artistic discovery. Makers Playground: Summer Art Program is structured as eight individual weekly sessions, each available for separate enrollment. Families can register for one week or multiple weeks, with each session offering a unique theme and experience. Students will explore drawing, painting, mixed media, digital illustration, and clay while engaging directly with the Museum’s exhibitions and the surrounding arts community. iPads are provided so students can learn and create using Procreate alongside traditional materials. Each week includes a guided walking field trip to a local cultural or historic site where students sketch, observe, and collect inspiration from real world environments. These experiences will include visits to nearby museums, galleries, public art, libraries, waterfront spaces, and historic landmarks such as the New Bedford Glass Museum and the Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum. Walking field trips and observational exercises encourage students to think like artists by observing, analyzing, and responding to the world around them. Clay will be offered as a rotating feature across select weeks depending on studio availability. By the end of […]

    $270.00 – $300.00

  • Vanishing Ecologies: Speculative Futures

    Vanishing Ecologies: Speculative Futures
    New Bedford Art Museum 608 Pleasant St, New Bedford, MA, United States

    Vanishing Ecologies: Speculative Futures JUNE 25 - OCTOBER 11, 2026 Vanishing Ecologies: Speculative Futures brings together an international group of contemporary artists working across sculpture, installation, painting, photography, sound, and time-based media. The exhibition examines artistic responses to the Anthropocene, a period characterized by the irreversible impact of human activity on the planet, and considers potential futures that may arise as a result. Through immersive and materially innovative works, Vanishing Ecologies addresses climate change, mass extinction, environmental toxicity, and the enduring legacy of the atomic age. The exhibition examines the increasingly complex relationships among technology, ecology, and time. Some artists investigate the fragile boundary between collapse and adaptation, while others envision post-human futures, ecological resilience, and planetary memory. Throughout the exhibition, artists translate ecological questions into experiences that are simultaneously material, emotional, and speculative. Representations of extinct species, consumer waste, fragile glass forms, contaminated landscapes, organic growth, and imagined future artifacts serve as frameworks for considering a planet in transition. These works navigate the intersection of scientific inquiry and artistic invention, tracing the intricate relationships among human activity, technological systems, and the living world. Rather than solely documenting environmental crises, Vanishing Ecologies investigates how art can expand the capacity for […]

    $7 – $10

  • WHEEL THROWING: The Classes for All Levels

    WHEEL THROWING: The Classes for All Levels
    New Bedford Art Museum 608 Pleasant St, New Bedford, MA, United States

    Whether you are an enthusiastic beginner or an experienced pro with the wheel, you are welcome in this class, which will cover all aspects of the ceramics process. You'll learn how to throw on the potter’s wheel and you will practice new throwing techniques and hone specific skills. An Instructor will help students increase the amount of clay they can handle successfully, throw thinner and taller, and throw new shapes. We will practice attachments such as handles, as well as pulling handles directly from the side of the cup. The class will focus primarily on tableware shapes – mugs, cups, bowls plates, etc, but all ideas and forms of expression through clay are encouraged! Classes meet 1 day a week for 4 weeks. (July 7, 14, 21, & 28) All necessary materials are provided for this hands-on experience.

    $210.00 – $235.00

  • Creative Canvas Club

    Creative Canvas Club
    New Bedford Art Museum 608 Pleasant St, New Bedford, MA, United States

    Join us for Creative Canvas Club, a fun and welcoming series designed for young artists who are new to painting or looking to build their skills. Led by artist Devin McLaughlin, this beginner-focused class encourages creativity, exploration, and confidence through paint. Each session offers a guided painting experience for those who enjoy step-by-step instruction, while also giving students the freedom to experiment and create their own original work. Whether following along or free painting, students will develop foundational techniques while exploring their own artistic voice in a supportive, low-pressure environment. *All materials are included.*

    $50 – $55

  • THE PEOPLE’S POETRY

    New Bedford Art Museum 608 Pleasant St, New Bedford, MA, United States

    Poets, spoken word artists, and poetry enthusiasts are invited to perform original works and share poems that inspire them. Connect to the local poetry community and enjoy the rhythms and beauty of spoken word every last Wednesday of the month.

    Free

  • Figure Drawing Open Studio

    New Bedford Art Museum 608 Pleasant St, New Bedford, MA, United States

    Drawing from a live model has been an important part of many formal artistic practices since the Renaissance. Our open figure drawing studio is intended to provide artists of all levels a relaxed environment and a dedicated space where they are able to continue the tradition of working from a live nude model. Sessions are three hours long, and will start with a series of short gestures and ranging from 5-10 minutes before moving into longer 30 minute poses. Each class typically concludes with an hour long pose. There will be no formal instruction during the class; artists are encouraged to work from the model independently, in any medium they wish to bring.

    $20

  • Sketchbook Club

    New Bedford Art Museum 608 Pleasant St, New Bedford, MA, United States

    Every Other Friday | 6:00–8:00 PM Tickets: $10 Whether you use your sketchbook to creatively brainstorm a work project, capture daily observations, imagine a fantasy world, or just mindfully doodle, it can be a unique record of your day or your life. Join other sketchers at our informal gathering, led by local artist and illustrator Isiah Botelho. Each session will kick off with a prompt to inspire discussion and drawing, and participants will be able to share their work comfortably. Bring your sketchbook and preferred materials; we will have some basic supplies available. No pressure, no judgment, no guilt -- just community.

    $10

  • KidZone

    New Bedford Art Museum 608 Pleasant St, New Bedford, MA, United States

    Join us every Sunday in the Art Museum for family-friendly activities for kids ages 4-12 and their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends. Learn about our exhibitions and make art, get creative, and have fun! Drop in anytime. (Children must be accompanied by an adult.)

    $5

  • SnapLab: Photography Studio Sessions

    SnapLab: Photography Studio Sessions
    New Bedford Art Museum 608 Pleasant St, New Bedford, MA, United States

    SnapLab: Photography Studio Sessions is a four-week, hands-on photography course for teens and adults who want to get confident behind a camera — any camera. This is a shooting-first course: every session puts a camera in your hands, whether you’re practicing the exposure triangle at hands-on stations, hunting compositions on a guided photo walk through downtown New Bedford, or working with studio lighting at the Museum. Skills build week to week — exposure, composition, lighting, and editing — and short group shares at the end of each session help you learn to see what’s working in your own photos. The course wraps with a final shooting challenge and a casual gallery-style showcase of each participant’s best work from the month. No experience needed. SnapLab is designed to teach photography skills and to grow a creative community where local photographers can connect, collaborate, and build confidence together. What to Bring Any camera participants are comfortable using — DSLR, mirrorless, or smartphone. Program Goals Program Goals Session 1: The Exposure Triangle, Hands-On After a short introduction to aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, participants move straight into shooting stations — freezing and blurring motion, controlling depth of field, and working in low light. […]

    $4 – $200

  • Creative Canvas Club

    Creative Canvas Club
    New Bedford Art Museum 608 Pleasant St, New Bedford, MA, United States

    Join us for Creative Canvas Club, a fun and welcoming series designed for young artists who are new to painting or looking to build their skills. Led by artist Devin McLaughlin, this beginner-focused class encourages creativity, exploration, and confidence through paint. Each session offers a guided painting experience for those who enjoy step-by-step instruction, while also giving students the freedom to experiment and create their own original work. Whether following along or free painting, students will develop foundational techniques while exploring their own artistic voice in a supportive, low-pressure environment. *All materials are included.*

    $50 – $55

  • Figure Drawing Open Studio

    New Bedford Art Museum 608 Pleasant St, New Bedford, MA, United States

    Drawing from a live model has been an important part of many formal artistic practices since the Renaissance. Our open figure drawing studio is intended to provide artists of all levels a relaxed environment and a dedicated space where they are able to continue the tradition of working from a live nude model. Sessions are three hours long, and will start with a series of short gestures and ranging from 5-10 minutes before moving into longer 30 minute poses. Each class typically concludes with an hour long pose. There will be no formal instruction during the class; artists are encouraged to work from the model independently, in any medium they wish to bring.

    $20