The Tarble Arts Center works around a limited budget to bring numerous art exhibitions and galleries.

Michael Watts, director of Tarble, said the center borrows exhibitions and galleries for little cost from universities and art museums around Illinois. Tarble also brings traveling exhibitions, but because of its $150,000 budget, the number is few.

“We have been really fortunate to have other arts agencies in the state that will work with us – and we try to reciprocate,” Watts said. “We make the most with what we have. Other universities are in the same boat having to jigsaw their budgets together.”

The budget draws money from a number of sources. Eastern pays for all of the permanent salaries and maintenance and a portion of the student help, Watts said. Other sources include appropriated money, endowment from the Eastern Illinois University Foundation, the annual membership drive and an Illinois Arts Council state grant.

Examples of the exhibitions Tarble has brought include pre-Columbian and Native American art and Haitian masks.

“Not to brag on Tarble, but (despite) the budget we have, we’ve brought in some of the very best internationally-known artists working in the United States,” Kit Morice, curator of education, said.

The 13,200-square-foot center also hosts annual academic exhibitions through its affiliation with the art department, featuring art from faculty, students and graduate students.

Morice and Watts orchestrate all the exhibitions that come to Tarble and get ideas from a variety of areas. Morice said Tarble borrows a lot of art from her alma mater, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, as well as Illinois State University and Lakeview Community College. Art faculty also are asked for input on what artists to bring.

Art supplied by universities and colleges is convenient for Tarble, which has between 400 and 500 members because in most cases, the only expense is travel and insurance.

When a private artist or traveling exhibition is brought in, a traveling fee is charged.

“I have been in this position long enough to make contacts,” Morice said. “To where if we need Haitian art I have a few contacts.

“It starts with kind of knowing who has what,” she said.

Tarble, which was built in 1985, owns approximately 1,000 pieces of permanent art.

Morice said the majority of the collection is folk art, landscape portraits by local artist Paul Turner Sergeant and American Scene prints. Art pieces in the collection can be tax writeoffs, so the majority is donated.

The exhibitions are used for education programs or tours. Morice said the number of visitors in any given year numbers in the “tens of thousands.”

Although construction contracts have not been finalized, Tarble will receive a $2 million renovation.

Watts said a new multi-use area will be added, which will include a meeting room that will have the ability to showcase electronic media, a catering kitchen, bathrooms and storage areas. The $2 million also will include the unification of the building’s heating and cooling system once the remodeling has been completed.