Vaasa Artists'  Association is an organization founded in 1953 for professional artists living in and around Vaasa. Its purpose is to promote visual arts in Vaasa and the surrounding area. The association serves as a link and an advocacy organization for visual artists and works to bring artists and the art audience  closer together. 

The Vaasa Artists' Association is a  member of the Union of Finnish Art Associations (Suomen Kuvataidejärjestöjen liitto ry).

Applicants living in the area who have sufficiently advanced in the field of visual arts can apply to become new members of the association. Key requirements include active participation in juried art exhibitions and possibly an art education background. More detailed information about the point system used can be obtained from the association's secretary. 

Individuals and organizations known as supporters of the arts can join as supporting members of the association. 

MEMBER APPLICATION

The board of the Vaasa Artists' Association reviews membership applications. Professional education, exhibition activity, other artistic merits, and artwork samples are taken into consideration. 

The membership application in Finnish, Swedish or English, should include a brief introduction, a resume clearly listing juried group exhibitions, and 5-10 high-quality images of artworks.

The membership application can be sent to the chairperson of the Artists' Association. 

HISTORY

The Vaasa Artists' Association was founded in 1953. On April 18th, the newspaper Pohjalainen (then Vaasa) reported the establishment of the bilingual association Vaasan Taiteilijaseura-Vasa Konstnärsgille aimed at "uniting the city's professional visual artists". The goal was to form a professional organization for visual artists from Vaasa and the surrounding area, with membership criteria, alongside the Vaasa Art Club (Vaasan Taidekerho), which was open to all art enthusiasts. 

Many respected members of the artists' association had started their careers in the club, so the two organizations generally worked well together. However, conflicts did arise and were publicly discussed, for example, in the 1980s.

The goals were ambitious. The association aimed to establish connections with city offices, create an art committee, secure grants, exhibition spaces, art purchases, competitions, and generally develop the city's art scene. The association immediately started organizing annual exhibitions. In the early years, activities included drawing evenings, painting camps and courses. Together, members familiarized themselves with contemporary art movements and began participating in art exhibitions in the capital. 

In 1955, the city provided a couple of rooms on the third floor of the City Hall as an exhibition space. The first international connections were established in Sweden, and already in 1956, an exhibition was held in Vaasa's sister city, Malmö.

In the 1960s, the city of Vaasa began to take an interest in culture. It established the Vaasa grant, started awarding scholarships that visual artists could also apply for, supported art exhibitions, and began organizing various cultural events. The association's exhibitions were presented, its members were introduced through the "Get to Know the Artists" lecture series, and supporting members were recruited. The painting camps were turned into courses open to everyone. Nordic cooperation continued with touring exhibitions in Norrbotten in 1961 and 1962. When the regional arts councils began their operations in the late 1960s, the association started receiving state aid. Even then, there was keen interested in art lending activities. Vaasa Art Hall, located on the lower floor of the City Hall, was inaugurated in the fall of 1966. The exhibition rooms on the third floor had proven disappointing for visual artists, as various club activities were held there even during exhibitions. On the lowest floor of the building, on the side of Raastuvankatu, the fire department had a hall for fire trucks. When the artists' association heard that the fire department was moving out, they began lobbying in 1962 to convert the space into an art hall, and they succeeded.

Vaasa Art Hall was completed in 1966. It was the city of Vaasa's gift to visual artists. The art hall, located in the lower floor of the City Hall, is an excellent exhibition venue.

However, the management of the hall and the organization of exhibitions became a problem for the association, one that was deliberated for a long time and is still debated. The Vaasa Saskia Association supported the artists' association by supervising the exhibitions, but the artists themselves were responsible for publicity, presentations, exhibition catalogs, and so on. This was especially challenging for artists coming from farther away, and the quality of the exhibitions became increasingly inconsistent. 

In the 1980s, the city's cultural department took over the responsibility for exhibitions, and a hall attendant was hired. It was decided to eliminate amateur exhibitions from the program, but Vaasa's own art club was allotted an annual slot to organize its juried annual exhibition. Today, a museum technician works at the hall, and the exhibitions are managed by the Ostrobothnian Museum. The back room, separated by the partition from the main hall, is primarily reserved for exhibitions by the Ibis Photography Gallery. 

A new concern among the members of the artists' association is the sometimes very low visitor numbers at the art hall. In the past, there was an average of 1,500 visitors per exhibition, sometimes even much more—up to 5,000. The aim is to return to those figures. It is feared that the general public has become alienated from the hall because it has too often hosted long, experimental exhibitions, which, while of high quality, attract only a small number of art experts and students in the city of the size of Vaasa.

The 1970s was the time for the artists' association to establish connections. Exchange exhibitions were organized in Oulu, Kokkola, Hämeenlinna, Kristiinankaupunki, Jyväskylä and Pietarsaari, and at the beginning of the next decade, in Tampere and Mikkeli. A Nordic collaboration flourished with a series of exchange exhibitions in Örnsköldsvik from 1973 to 1976, which attracted public attention and boosted art sales.

By the end of the 1970s, it became clear that the association's funds were depleted. The city of Vaasa provided only small grants. Additional support came from the Vaasa Art Society, the treasurer saved the day with loans, and even promissory note debt was taken on. Eventually, support came from the arts council, and the financial base was replenished through an art auction.

The 1980s marked the beginning of the internationalization of the artists' association. The Vaasa Art Printmakers' Association, whose members are largely also members of the artists' association, began organizing an international biennial for young printmakers. This event has since evolved into Grafinnova, an international exhibition of printmaking and drawings held every four years, now organized by the Ostrobothnian Museum. Traditional Nordic art collaboration continued, but connections were also established with countries such as Germany and Estonia, particularly with the sister cities of Kiel, Schwerin and Pärnu.

Group exhibitions were held abroad, and individual members of the association, as well as the like-minded groups of artists, organized their own exhibitions internationally.

The 1980s also saw the beginning of various summer exhibitions, both organized by and participated in by the association. During that decade, the number of members grew from 31 to over 40, where it has remained until now. As one of the oldest artists' associations in the country, the association hopes to gain more members, especially young ones, to ensure its activities continue to thrive. 

However, the association cannot and does not want to compromise on its membership criteria. To be accepted as a member, applicants need a total of 20 points. Points can be earned through education (e.g., a preparatory art school such as Kankaanpää grants 10 points) and participation in exhibitions (e.g., the Finnish Artists' Annual Exhibition gives 15 points, an international juried exhibition 10 points, a regional exhibition organized by the Arts Council 5 points, and the association's annual exhibition 2 points). Some Finnish artists' associations have been stricter criteria. The association stopped running painting courses itself in the 1980s, shifting to collaborative courses with Vöyri Folk High School and the Printmakers' Association at Vaasa Summer University. By the 1990s, members became increasingly concerned about the decreasing grants from the Arts Council and the city,a s well as the lack of affordable studio spaces. The printmakers had their workshop, which moved to Vaskiluoto in the fall of 2002, and a couple of artists rented studio space from the city. But that was all. 

One of the major projects in the 1990s was running their own gallery from fall 1992 to fall 1993, and later, towards the end of the decade, an ambitious vision for arts center on a barracks area vacated by the defense forces. The vision included exhibition and studio spaces for visual artists, an art foundry, a printmaking workshop, visual arts education, and an art lending service. Although the vision was never fully realized, the city now rents workspace in the area to small businesses, including visual artists. The Artists' Association and the Printmakers' Association jointly began running Gallery Wasa in October 1992, when the previous gallery owner, impacted by the recession, had to giv eup the baseent space in Hallitar House, which had been specially renovated as an art gallery. Initially, operations ran smoothly, with high-quality exhibitions that aimed to showcase young talents and respected artists from across Finland. Many members of the Saskia group eagerly participated in volunteer work. However, over time, it became clear that some members of the both the association and the Saskia group did not believe in the idea of having their own gallery. From the summer of 1993, the Printmakers' Association continued running the gallery under the name Gallery W, until November 1993, when a new entrepreneur took over the space.

In 1998, the 45th year of the artists' association's operations, funds were raised by holding an art market at Rewell Center. The market built positive experiences from the previous year's event in the dining hall of Ernest's restaurant before it was renovated into a studio theater. In the jubilee year, the annual exhibition was held exclusively for the association's members. However, in collaboration with the Vaasa Parish Union, the association announced an open competition for spiritual visual art with the theme "As Life Unfolds". The competition was won by Maire Ruotsalainen with her watercolor triptych titled "Let Me Live" ("Anna minun elää"). The competition entries were displayed at the Art Hall in February 1999.

One of the major achievements of the 2000s was the opening the art lending service in collaboration with the Vaasa City Library, in the renovated and expanded spaces of the main library. At the same time, members of the artists' association began collaborating with Italian gallerist Mimma Massone. In 2000, Massone organized an exhibition in Bergamo featuring 12 members of the association, sponsored by the Laihia-based company T-Drill, which provided transport support for the products to Italy. In 2002, Massone invited five association members to an exhibition she organized in the old Taranto castle. In Spain, association members Raili and Asko Halme held an exhibition. Vaasa artists have had ongoing connections with Spain, as Vaasa-born artists Totte Mannes has lived in Madrid for decades.

Päivi Vuoljärvi

Sources: Tea Helenelund's historic to Vaasa's artists guild's 40th annual publication, year 2003 chairman Seija Tamminen's and secretary Maire Ruotalainen's interview, Vaasa's artist's guild's and Tapani Tammenpä's archives, Tapani Tammenpää's and Päivi Vuoljärvi's scrapbook from years 1967 - 2002. Päivi Vuoljärvi was working long time as a culture journalist at the newspaper Pohjalainen.