Walton Arts Center
Helen Walton and community leader Billie Jo Starr at the opening of Walton Arts Center.
More than 30 years ago, Sam and Helen Walton dreamed of a cultural arts and education center for Northwest Arkansas. To that end, they provided a major gift to the University of Arkansas for the creation of a cultural center. Walton Arts Center came to fruition as a combined effort between the City of Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas, through the Waltons' gift. A tireless champion of the arts and of arts education initiatives in Arkansas, Mrs. Walton was instrumental in identifying prospective donors, ensuring that Walton Arts Center would be known as "Northwest Arkansas' center for the arts" and encouraging the public to be involved with the arts.
Walton Arts Center is a leading arts and entertainment venue that makes the good life in Northwest Arkansas even better. While the Walton Family Foundation has provided ongoing support to the Center since its opening in 1992, the Foundation's current focus has been providing funding to enable Walton Arts Center to present theater, music and dance performances and visual arts exhibitions generally available only to audiences in larger metropolitan areas. Examples of these higher-caliber events include touring Broadway shows The Producers and Mamma Mia, top entertainers Lily Tomlin and Michael McDonald, Chicago's Joffrey Ballet, and exhibitions of works by international artists Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso.
Walton Arts Center provides many first-time theater experiences for residents of Northwest Arkansas through several outreach programs. Each year nearly 25,000 students from around the region – many of whom have never experienced a live arts event – visit the center through its reduced-price student matinee series or its Take-A-Seat program, which offers free tickets to local non-profit organizations.
Walton Arts Center brings high-quality performing and visual arts to residents of Northwest Arkansas, including underserved populations, and offers arts-based education and studio programs for the region's teachers and students.
Walton Arts Center clearly enhances the quality of life in Northwest Arkansas, which in turn assists local businesses and industries in attracting and retaining quality employees. As young professionals moving to the area from Dallas, Texas, Megan Timberlake says she and her husband were looking for "social activities where we could have fun and meet new friends. At Walton Arts Center, we found so much more."
Since 1992, the Center has been both the cornerstone and engine of Northwest Arkansas' burgeoning arts community, which currently includes a professional symphony orchestra and professional theater company and will soon be home to the world-class Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
