The City Arts Center

All Aboard for Fun!

We’re excited for our next three exhibits, which will be on view — and in motion! — in the City Arts Center:

Things With Wheels: How We Get There | December 4, 2024-January 3, 2025

This exhibit celebrates the great invention of the wheel in its many forms and uses! In addition trains and cars, you’ll see some unexpected selections rendered by local artists in this exhibit. 

The Annual Holiday Model Train Exhibit | On view December 4, 2024-January 3, 2025

The Tinplate Trackers of Austin Texas will present their annual exhibit in the City Arts Center, with trains running through an assortment of landscapes natural, industrial, and dramatic too. Even when the trains are at rest, this exhibit is a delight to behold. See below for train schedule.

Capital Confectioners Gift Shop and Sugar Windows

Shop now through the new year for train-shaped cookies, gnomes, serving trays, ornaments, and other goodies in the gift shop. Plus, on December 7th, members of Capital Confectioners will be festooning our Prete Plaza window area with a sugar art! 

The City Arts Center is open: 

  • Tuesday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
  • Wednesday: 10 a.m.-8 p.m. (open extended hours during Music on Main events)
  • Thursday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
  • Friday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
  • Saturday: 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

The Holiday Model Train Exhibit will be on view throughout these hours. 

However, if you want to see the trains in motion, they’ll be running special hours: Tuesdays-Fridays, 11am-5pm and Saturdays 11am-2pm. 

Please note: During this exhibit period, we will have brief gallery closures for City of Round Rock holidays (12/25, 12/26, 1/1). 

To ensure fun and safety of the art and the trains, our guidelines for visitors:

  • Please leave strollers outside.
  • Please leave food and drink outside.
  • We will limit number of visitors in gallery to maintain crowds.
  • No unattended children, please.
  • When it’s busy, please limit your visit for others to enjoy.
  • Look with your eyes, not your hands!
  • Please do not touch the art on the walls or the train layout!
  • Parents, please assist your children.
  • No running in the art gallery.
  • Admission is free!
  • Most important: Let’s have fun!

Note well: Sometimes the trains will not be running but it’s still exciting to view the magical layout. See above for “trains in motion” times. 

We send appreciation to the following artists for sharing their work with the public through this exhibit in the City Arts Center. Where applicable, we’ve hyperlinked the artists’ website, so you can learn more about them. 

Maria Appelzoller

Paul Borelli

Sally Gonzalez

Nazia Hoda

Lisa Hoekstra

Robin Hought

Dimple Kaul

Karen Limbaugh

Linda Murray

Monica Puryear

Talieka Shears

Tracie Storie

Gina Tracy

Lisa Zinna

As a bonus, balloon artist Tony Maxironi will be inside (or outside) the City Arts Center during the Holiday Model Train Show season. Admission to the train exhibit and the gallery exhibit are both free, and Tony will be creating fun balloon art for children of all ages to take home, also free of charge! 

Schedule of appearances by Tony Maxironi:

Week 1:

December 3, 5, 6, 7, 2024 – Tuesday (12-5:00pm), Thursday (12-5:00pm), Friday (12-5:00pm), Saturday (12-2)

Week 2:

December 10, 12, 13, 14, 2024 – Tuesday (12-5:00pm), Thursday (12-5:00pm), Friday (12-5:00pm), Saturday (12-2)

Week 3:

December 17, 19, 20, 21, 2024 – Tuesday (12-5:00pm), Thursday (12-5:00pm), Friday (12-5:00pm), Saturday (12-2)

Call for Art | Exhibit Opportunities

We love to show off talented local and area artists. If you wish to be considered for an in-person or virtual exhibit, we invite you to fill out an online application for an upcoming Call for Art. Please note: There is no application fee! 

Stay tuned to our social media for announcements about opportunities for artists (FB and IG). 

Shutterbuggin’: Celebrating Art Through Local Lenses –

We’re celebrating photography in all of its formats at the City Arts Center, including yes, even your cell phone photos!

We are considering all forms of photography, including, but not limited to:

• Film photography, including large and medium formats, Polaroid cameras, “toy” camera formats (Lomography and more), etc.
• Cyanotype
• Video
• Digital photography
• Mixed media photography
• And yes! Cell phone photography also!!!

Bonus points for out of the box thinking like printing on unexpected surfaces (like leaves?) or using different shapes, sizes, or textures (go 3D?), series of cell phone foodie pics? Make it next level!

If you’re not ready yet to prepare your digital photos into something 2D or 3D, please see our separate application for our virtual exhibit, “Pixel Panorama.”

Deadline to apply is December 9th at 11:59pm. 

Click here to read more and apply online!

For photographers not yet ready to print, frame, or otherwise prepare their digital photography for a 2D or 3D exhibit, we welcome you to apply to be in our virtual exhibit! All you need to do is fill in our application and attach your jpeg of your digital photograph!

Click here for the details and the online application. 

Deadline to apply is December 19th at 11:59pm. 

 

Pick With Austin Partnership

December news! We have a bunch of electric guitars to give out from Pick With Austin! Do you know a  young person whose mental health could be uplifted with the gift of music? We have a stock of the guitar you see pictured here. Contact us in advance (call 512-341-3113), since they are in storage, and we’ll arrange a pickup time with you.

The City Arts Center serves as a welcoming pickup/drop off point for the local mental health awareness nonprofit Pick With Austin (http://pickwithaustin.com). 

Connect directly with Pick With Austin to inquire about its no-fee instrument program, or stop by the gallery to see if we have an instrument on display that might be of use to you. A goal of this nonprofit is to help youth through the gift of music, by way of no-fee instruments and musical equipment. Have an instrument to donate? Bring it to the gallery, and we’ll pass it along to the nonprofit organization for you. 

We Welcome You!

The City Arts Center is a public space where you can savor art in welcoming environment. In other words, we are an unpretentious and inviting space for you to recharge yourself by checking out local creativity! For local and area artists, we invite you to scroll above to see what Call for Art exhibit opportunities that might be of interest to you and your creativity! We look forward to meeting you!

Who are we? The City Arts Center is staffed and managed by the City of Round Rock Arts and Culture

Looking Back

This same address was previously an art gallery, where so much creativity was shared…and now, as the City Arts Center, we have so much talent to share with you! We look forward to meeting you upon your next visit to our art gallery! 

Contact

The City Arts Center
Main number: 512-341-3113

Fred Cooley
Arts and Culture Receptionist
fcooley@roundrocktexas.gov
737-775-4870 (Cell)
5512-671-2884 (Office)

Christina Rudofsky
Arts and Culture Associate
crudofsky@roundrocktexas.gov
512-801-0698 (Cell)
512-218-3298 (Office)

Location

The City Arts Center
231 East Main Street, Suite 160
Round Rock, TX 78664

Hours

  • Tuesday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
  • Wednesday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (open extended hours until 8pm during Hometown Holiday music season Dec 3-21)
  • Thursday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
  • Friday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
  • Saturday: 10 a.m.-3 p.m. 
  • Closed for exhibit installation: Nov 23-26, Nov 30, Dec 3
  • Closed for upcoming City of Round Rock holidays: 11/28-29, 12/24-25, 1/13
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