The Hoffman Center for the Arts is going for a golden year in 2025.

Every year, the Manzanita center puts on a nonjuried community arts show around a theme. This year, that theme is “Gold.”

“Last year, the theme was ‘Indigo,’” said India Downes-Le Guin, executive director of the Hoffman Center. “A lot of blue! There were 625 pieces in our small space, all from artists ages 6 to 90. You can just imagine!”

For this year’s annual community show, the Hoffman Center has encouraged a diversity of media: paintings, prints, collages, textiles, wood, ceramics, writing and more, starting the new year with gold imagined in so many clever and inspiring ways. The “Gold” show will be exhibited in the center’s gallery from Jan. 2 to Jan. 25.

An artist reception will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. Jan. 4. Then, on Jan. 12 at 4 p.m., the center will host an open mic for writers, prompted by the theme.

Yes, there is a twin writing event to complement the “Gold” show. The North Coast writing crowd can share their gold through poetry, fiction, nonfiction or memoir. The possibilities are endless: golden years, all that glitters is not gold, good as gold, golden hour.

Writers are invited to use any angle or genre that they have written about gold, whether a poem, essay, memoir or short story in 800 words or less.

In October, November and December, writers were invited to submit up to one piece per month in response to a prompt for the center’s Community Writes program. Residents of Tillamook, Clatsop, Pacific and Wahkiakum counties have participated. The pieces are published on the center’s website.

Those whose work was accepted will read from their pieces on Jan. 12. Presenters who want to participate in the open mic event without having submitted their writing through the program may sign up when they arrive, or email the center to snag a spot ahead of time.

It could be your golden ticket, or perhaps your golden opportunity.

The show comes as the Hoffman Center celebrates its 20th year. There have been 20 years of classes in pottery, art, writing and horticulture, 20 years of author talks, open mics, publications, parties and prizes. It’s been 20 years of knitting together the creative energies and imaginations of artists and writers from Astoria to Netarts and places in between.

Now, in 2025, the center is introducing Adria Badagnani as its new writing program lead. Badagnani, who is taking the helm as of Jan. 1, has been a participant and a volunteer and is excited about her new role.

Her work includes building a 2025 schedule of literary events, she said, such as workshops involving local, regional, and nationally recognized writers, as well as visiting authors for the center’s Manzanita Writers’ Series.

Coming up in January on that literary schedule is a call for submissions to the Neahkahnie Mountain Poetry Prize. Through Jan. 31, poets with connections to the North Coast are invited to enter their work on the Hoffman Center’s website. This year, the contest will be judged by Carey Taylor, author of “Some Aid to Navigation” and “The Lure of Impermanence,” and a 2022 poetry prize winner.

Winning poets will read on April 13 at a Manzanita Writers’ Series event hosted by Airlie Press, a writer-run publisher based in Portland. That reading will also feature Daneen Bergland and Irene Cooper, each reading from their new works.

Looking farther ahead, Badagnani sees writing as a continued part of the center’s annual community shows.

“Community Writes will continue to be a part of the annual community gallery show that features a different color theme and invites submissions from visual artists and writers on the theme,” she said.

“I first participated in Community Writes when the theme was ‘Scarlet’ two years ago and then ‘Indigo’ last year. It is a joy to see visual artists’ expressions of the theme color, as well as writers’ interpretations.”

2025 Annual Community Show

2025 Annual Community Show

Through Jan. 25 at Hoffman Center for the Arts, 594 Laneda Ave., Manzanita. Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays.

Writers’ open mic at 4 p.m. Jan. 12, walk-ins welcome.

Featuring “Gold” submissions for the center’s Community Writes program, also published online at www.hoffmanarts.org.