RUMFORD – The Pennacook Art Center, for four years a fixture on Congress Street, is setting up shop at the River Valley Healthy Communities Coalition on River Street.

And though the center will no longer have a gallery open to the public at its new location, plans are in the works to find ways to bring art to the public, rather than having the public come to the art, assured Betsy Bell, the former gallery manager.

The change in location is part of a bigger change in direction for the organization, explained Bell, who will now be serving as the Visual Arts Guild director of the newly restructured art center board. Under the new arrangement, the various arts will be represented by guilds – organizations of similar artists or craftspeople.

Other guilds currently being organized will be for writers and poets, craftspeople and musicians. All were represented, at one time or another, at the gallery during the past few years with poetry and prose readings, holiday music and displays of weaving and other crafts, along with several walls of paintings and sculptures.

“We’ll be popping up in the community here and there for a while, to take art to the people,” Bell said.

Tiny steps in that direction began last fall when exhibits were taken to Andover and to the Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry.

The newly organized board is searching for businesses and public or semi-public places to hang art. June Dragoon, a well-known Peru artist, is heading up the search for places to display artworks.

Several members of the board are also offering lessons in various visual media through the Region 9 School of Applied Technology adult and community education program.

A Web site is currently in the works – pennacookarts.com – and several new volunteer positions in promotions, fundraising, and communications have been created.

Special events, such as a display of some type, will likely happen during the town’s Moontide Water Festival in the summer and an open house for the new offices will be held sometime this spring, according to Bell.

A new telephone number and e-mail address are expected to be up and running at the new offices within a few weeks.

“Part of being a nonprofit is constantly reinventing what we are doing. We want to meet the needs of the community, to connect the artist with the community” Bell said.

Those interested in becoming a part of the newly reorganized Pennacook Art Center, may contact Bell at 364-7243 or [email protected], or the board’s president, Shannon Couture, a multimedia artist who teaches the after-school program at SAD 43 and SAD 21, at 562-9010.

Eventually, Bell said, the group would like to have a display area, once again, as well as space to offer myriad classes.

But for now, the group will find other niches in the community.

“We’re really excited about this. We were sorry to lose the gallery, but now we will have many locations, instead,” said Bell.