Dry Canyon Arts Association’s Annual Fall Art Show & Sale Relocates to Middle School

In 2025, Dry Canyon Art Association’s Fall Show & Sale set records in every category they chart, from number of artists to number of visitors. So what do they do for an encore in 2026? They pick up and move to a new, untested venue and start over. Actually, it wasn’t their idea. Their well-known and well-loved venue, Redmond High School, is currently undergoing a roof-to-floor remodel due to age, moisture, asbestos, you name it, so the challenge to move the operation was accepted. This year, the Fall Art Show & Sale will relocate to Obsidian Middle School at 1335 SW Obsidian Avenue for the weekend of November 14th and 15th.

In order to find out how Dry Canyon leadership was regrouping for this move, and how they were planning on directing their loyal clientele to the new venue, the co-chairs of this year’s event, Jay Lowndes, Dry Canyon’s board chair and co-event manager, and Brad Harrison, co-event manager, sat down to answer some of those questions.

Q: I can imagine that you saw this coming. How did you go about choosing a new location while Redmond High School is under reconstruction?

Jay Lowndes: My years of high school experience taught me a long time ago that you can’t remodel a 40-year-old school in a single summer session. Anticipating the delay, I started asking questions about a backup location a year ago. The school district juggles a ton of moving parts between their own activities and outside groups like ours. Michele Hyde, the facilities coordinator, does an amazing job managing it all, and I’m just really glad she was able to offer us a fantastic alternative space.

Q: Are you worried that the change in venues may affect attendance numbers?

Jay Lowndes: A little bit, honestly. It is definitely a concern. We know it’s going to be a challenge to spread the word about the move. However, with clear communication as our top priority, we expect to maintain our numbers and see a smooth transition.

Q: How are you planning on getting the word out to Redmond residents who are used to seeing that banner on the high school fence?

Brad Harrison: This year, we have the advantage of having the Dry Canyon Community Art Center [the new gallery owned by Dry Canyon Arts Association that opened in December of 2025] involved. As our hosts, they’ll be able to promote the show through their day-to-day interactions with customers and help us reach people who may not already be familiar with our event.

Our large banner can be moved to the fence at Obsidian Middle School, which still gets a significant amount of traffic. We may not reach every person who was used to seeing it at the old location, but putting it there also gives us the opportunity to catch the attention of an entirely new group of people.

Q: What are the possible advantages to the new location?

Brad Harrison: There are so many advantages to the new venue. The 100-plus-foot wall of south-facing windows will give us amazing natural lighting throughout the show. The entire venue is larger, allowing us to accommodate more booths, bring in more artists, and add some new elements that we felt were missing from an “Art Show and Sale.”

The new location should also give us better visibility and make the show easier for people to find. If someone happens to see our signs while driving by, they’ll have a much easier time turning around and coming back. Redmond High School wasn’t the easiest place to get back to if you passed it and noticed the show unexpectedly.

Q: What else would you like people to know about this year’s fall art show & sale?

Brad Harrison: Not only do we have more room for additional artists and student artists, but we’ll also have more space.

What I’m most excited about, though, is being able to expand the “Art Show” part of our Art Show and Sale.

With the extra space, we’re planning a dedicated area for larger individual art pieces created by members of our community. These spaces could feature a single sculpture, statue, large 2D piece, or other artwork that might not normally fit within a traditional booth.

These pieces won’t need to be manned by the artist and won’t be part of a booth. Instead, we want this area to have more of a gallery feel, where visitors can stroll through, take their time, and see what our community’s artists can create when they’re given a little more room to show it.

I think this will add an entirely new dimension to the show and give artists another way to share work that we simply haven’t had the space to showcase before.

And lastly, the added space will give us a chance to add more items to the raffle. Our artists have always been generous in donating extremely valuable pieces of wearable, usable and admirable art to our raffle, and this year there will be even more.

The show’s raffle is a crucial fundraiser for DCAA’s Jumpstart Art program. Jumpstart Art is an annual campaign to raise the funds necessary to provide visual art education to every elementary age child in the Redmond School District. DCAA has, through community giving and other grants, already presented the Redmond School District with $40,000 to pay for art educators and supplies in the 2026-2027 school year, which means they are about halfway to fully funding this year’s budgetary needs.

Dry Canyon Arts Association’s Fall Show & Sale will be at Obsidian Middle School, 1335 SW Obsidian Avenue, Redmond, Oregon on Saturday, November 14th from 10:00am to 5:00pm and Sunday, November 15th from 10:00am to 4:00pm.

Find out more about Dry Canyon Arts Association at drycanyonarts.org.

This story is based on submitted information and has not been verified by our news team.