To Our Members

OAL History

In 1909, a group of 40 graduates of the Columbus Art School (now Columbus College of Art & Design) formed the Columbus Art Students League for the purpose of organizing artists with an objective of “mutual and public benefit.” 117 years later, that vision has become the Ohio Art League and has affected the lives of thousands of Ohio artists including such distinguished members as Alice Schille, Roy Lichtenstein, Emerson Burkhart, and George Bellows.

OAL in 2025

The Ohio Art League has prided itself as one of the oldest members based arts organizations that has as its mission to serve the state of Ohio at large. Currently our membership spans approximately 156 zip codes across the state. Even though the largest base of our members resides in Central Ohio, OAL is representing artists in all of the major cities and many rural areas. In 2026 we have expanded out opportunities for artists to include close to 20 exhibitions while continuing our monthly networking events and our Executive Director providing excellent relationship and membership management.

OAL Looking Ahead

The Ohio Art League has a strong footing as a statewide organization that offers multiple opportunities through exhibitions, networking, and marketing of its membership. With the growth in our exhibition opportunities, we need to spend the next few years focused on sustainability, grant planning, philanthropy, and organizing our leadership and staff to be as efficient as possible while still being able to offer great exhibitions and resources for our members and art patrons.

Executive Team – Board of Trustees

Ohio Art League

April 2026

SUMMARY

 Exhibition Summary

We had a complete season of exhibitions in very prominent locations throughout Central Ohio and surrounding areas. These shows resulted in a handful of sales that benefited both the league and the artists.

Spring Juried Exhibition

• The 2025 Spring Juried Exhibition took place at The Works in Newark, Ohio and showcased selected 60 artworks from members statewide.
• The exhibition juror was Jolene Powell is a McCoy Professor of Art, and Director of Gallery 310 at Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio
• As part of the exhibition Ohio Art League Awarded 4 artists.
• Best of Show: Paul Rienzo
• 2nd Place: Don Reed
• 3rd Place: Grace Johnson
• Honorable Mention: Jim Bowling
• This exhibition saw $0 in total sales that contributed to the Ohio Art League. All sales were handled by The Works per the exhibition agreement.

Fall Juried Exhibition

• The 2025 Fall Juried Exhibition took place at Shot Tower at Fort Hayes in Columbus, Ohio and showcased 76 artists members state-wide. 
• The exhibition juror was Illya Mousavijad, from The Ohio State University.
• As part of the exhibition Ohio Art League Awarded 6 artists.
• Best of Show – Aleitta Garrett 
• 2nd Place – Teresa Olavarri 
• 3rd Place – Bailey Hammond 
• Honorable Mentions: Shelley Brenner Baird, Damianne Fischer and 
• This exhibition saw $2,300 in total sales of artwork.

Thumb Box Exhibition

 The 109th Thumb Box Exhibition took place in 2025 at RAW Gallery. 

• The exhibition saw 91 members submit over 100 artworks. In 2025 OAL exhibited over 170 individual works at Thumb Box
• Thumb Box saw $4,050.72 total sales in 2025. Thumb Box sales for 2025 almost doubled from 2024.

Gateway to the Arts Exhibitions

  In 2025, the Gateway to the Arts showcased 6 exhibitions. 

•    Gina Wolfrum - December 20234 - January 2025
•    Cierra Jackson - February 2025 - March 2025
•    Todd Rector - April 2025 - May 2025
•    Marianne Philip - June 2025 - July 2025
•    Mireya Campos and Jorge Vales - August 2025 - September 2025
•    Accessible Expressions - Art Possible Ohio - October 2025 - November 2025
The Gateway to the Arts generated a total $ 8,212.50 sales of artworks during the 2025 exhibition season.
The Gateway to the Arts was support by project series grant funds from the Greater Columbus Arts Council.

Broad Street Presbyterian 

 

All the BSP exhibitions are working under the theme of Mindfulness with sub themes chosen by the Executive Director and Board of Trustees in cooperation with partners at the church.

• BSP generated a total $1,760.00 sales of artworks during the 2025 exhibition season.
• BSP gave the Ohio Art League the opportunity to provide four additional group exhibitions to artist.

RAW Gallery

  RAW generated a total $11,467.00 sales of artworks during the 2025 exhibition season. This is more than triple the sales totals from 2024.

•    Continued Board of Trustee exhibitions to serve as an avenue for our members to meet the people who have been voluntarily supporting and operating OAL since at least 2020.

• These shows included, Brittany Cosgrove, Michol Childress, and AJ Vanderelli.Raw Gallery played host to multiple types of exhibitions in 2025.

• Uncensored – a group show that featured works previously censored from other exhibitions as well as works from an open group show call.

•    Deck the Walls – pop-up show featuring works of George Leach which was used as a fund-raising proof of concept for future pop-up shows.

Events Summary

•    The Ohio Art League continues to host our monthly networking event online as this allows members from across the state to attend our meetings. In 2025 we rebranded the event to call it OAL Artists Meetup. The topics of these meetings range from meeting the jurors of the spring and fall juried exhibitions, invited artists speakers who present their work and artist career trajectory, sharing updates on upcoming and current exhibitions, highlighting members non OAL exhibitions and sharing artists’ works in progress.
•    In 2025, OAL saw the arts community press take an interest in our exhibitions with stories written by Matter News, Columbus Monthly and the Columbus Dispatch. 
•    OAL Juried Exhibitions continue to be documented through no-cost volunteer video services provided by Treasure Nicolette Swift and her production company Nicolettecinemagraphics.

Grants Summary

During 2025, the Ohio Art League we received additional amounts closing out 2 Grants from OAC and one from GCAC.  These grants will allow us to give memberships to APO artist, give two mentorship grants and award Gateway artists an honorarium. In 2025 OAL is also proud to be a recipient of both Columbus Foundation Arts and Culture Sustaining Funds and Ohio Arts Council Sustaining Funds. Our total grant funds amount in 2025 comes to $26,516. All OAL grants are researched, written and submitted through volunteer efforts of the OAL Secretary Matt Swift with support from Executive Director Laura Savage and Treasure Nikki Swift.

Fiscal Initiatives

2025 the Ohio Art league has been maintaining services to the members buy utilizing multiple locations with no true physical location of day-to-day operations. That being said, previous OAL President, George Leach has graciously work out a deal with OAL to share space with his own gallery and studio at 112 E Main called RAW Gallery. The Executive Director keep both an exhibition for OAL and an exhibition for George Leach operating for members and the public with a portion of sales from both OAL shows and George Leaches shows coming back to the organizations general operating funds. This relationship has been very adventitious for both parties. Mr. Leach now has a regular presence available to keep his gallery open and has an online outlet for art sales. Ohio Art League has an operational rent-free location to hold meetings, do administrative work, and show case small exhibitions on a rotating basis. In 2025, efforts at RAW Gallery through the Uncensored, Thumb Box and Deck the Walls – pop-up shows have garnered a significant increase in traffic to exhibitions and sales revenue for the organization.

Membership

•    Ohio Art league has continued its relationship with Art Possible Ohio to provide additional membership discounts to artist in the disability community who are selected for Art Possible Ohio’s Accessible Expressions traveling exhibition.
•    OAL has continued to highlight membership at the $500+ level will now provide discounts on artwork. This will promote collectors and art’s patrons to join and support the league and our artists.
•    Ohio Art League has always been proud to represent a community of artists that practice in a plethora of mediums. Currently OAL’s over 400 active members practice artforms across 12 mediums.
•    In 2025 we have seen steady retention of membership levels as well as a more diverse population of members participating in the various levels of exhibitions raging across all communities of ethnicity, location, career level, orientation and age.

OAL Members by Artistic Medium

297 artists claim to work in 2 or more mediums.

OAL Member Gender

Membership Age: Ranging from 18-86 

OAL Member Ethnicity

• Our members attended 165 different colleges or schools

OAL Member Monthly Quantity

Membership Data Table

Artist/Enthusiast: Start – 338, End – 322

Discounted Artist/Enthusiast - Students only: Start – 21, End – 16

Military/Veterans: Start –11, End – 9

Board of Trustees: Start – 7, End – 7

OAL Associate: Start – 11, End – 10

Priscilla R. Tyson Cultural Arts Center : Start – 10, End – 13

K-12 Art Educator Membership - Discounted : Start – 4, End – 9

Family/Joint: Start – 6, End – 6

Benefactor: Start – 0, End – 0

Patron: Start – 3, End – 3

Partner: Start – 0, End – 0

OAL Supporter: Start – 2, End – 2

OAL Summary: Start –413, End – 418

FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

Profit & Loss for Period Covering 01/01/2025 to 12/31/2025                                             

 Income                                                  

Gifts Received                  $1,470.47

 Total Grants                     $26,516

 Interest Income               $1.67

 Membership                     $18,730.00

 Other Income                    $37.15

 Shows                                                   

BSP Sales                          $1,760.00
FJE Sales                           $2,300.00
Gateway Sales                 $8,212.50
SJE Sales                           $0
Thumb Box Sales            $4,050.72    
RAW                                    $11,467.00

Total Show Income           $27,790.22

Total Income                     $ 76,685.36

Expenses                                               

Board Retreat        $111.21      

Operations            

 Insurance        $ 1,189.00
 Phone        $ 206.11    
 Subscriptions    $ 3,511.93
 Shipping/Postage    $ 327.75 

Card Processing        $ 430.82         

Admin Services        $ 36,543.90
Marketing            $175.96
Shows            $1,392.61    
Awards        $200.00
FJE            $2,967.40   

Gateway        $7,306.25    
SJE            $ 2,025.00    
Thumb Box        $ 2,164.18     
BSP            $1,606.25   

RAW            $ 2,392.75

Mentorship        $ 1,500.00

Total Show Expenses       $21,554.45    

Total Expenses        $65,306.67

Net gain for Period                          

$11,378.69

 

 NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

 Debt

The Ohio Art League currently has no debts.

Savings

The board has realized that a strong organization cannot confidently move forward without dedicated staff.  In 2023 we hired a Programming Assistant and an Executive Director to give members more support moving forward.  This move comes with a strategic but significant expenditure that will require constant monitoring and adjustments.

Concerns

Ohio Art League needs to focus on sustainability over the next few years. The organization has been continued growth in exhibition opportunities and membership quantity. This growth mean mor labor is required by Board Members and Staff. The staff needs to organized efficiently and fairly compensated. The volunteer Board of Trustees needs to consider succession plans as many of its members provide a great deal of in-kind labor and have been doing so for at least 6 years. 

Takeaways

The current Ohio Art League is very strong, is on an upward growth cycle, is restoring its representation as a long running arts organization that provides a welcoming and friendly opportunity to grow as an artists, and with steady guidance by its very dedicated leadership and staff will continue to due so in the coming years.

Goals

• Ohio Art league will continue to work on their grant reputation and find more avenue for sustaining support through grants.
• The Ohio Art League organization will focus on continued growth of exhibitions and sales.
• The Ohio Art League will begin regular giving campaigns to raise awareness of the work that is begin done and encourage support of that work through higher level membership or through general philanthropy.
• The Ohio Art League will launch a membership survey to gauge members feelings about the current exhibitions, membership levels, marketing, and more.
• The Ohio Art League is continuing to expand partnership opportunities.
• The Ohio Art League is striving to take their exhibitions outside of the Columbus area slowly to occasionally provide exhibition opportunities across the state.