Greenville Center for Creative Arts enters its second decade with new leadership and new programs
Last year, when Sara Grambach took over as CEO of the Greenville Center for Creative Arts, she was tasked not only with overseeing the center’s day-to-day operations, but also ensuring its sustainability into the future.
Founded in 2015 as the area’s only nonprofit community art center with a mission of making art accessible for everyone in the community, GCCA is currently exploring the question: “How do we want to be creative going forward?” To answer that query, Grambach is using broad brushstrokes to paint the center’s future.
One way to do this, she suggests, is by diversifying the programming to include more performing arts such as dance, poetry, and music. To that end, the Center is creating a Junior Fellowship for kids ages 8-12 and 13-16. GCCA artist and dancer Nick Burns will mentor the program, which will include two young artists in both visual arts and dance.
Another of the Center’s artists, potter Brooke Barlow, is leading the brand-new ceramics program. Based upstairs in a section of the Gray Loft, Barlow will offer classes in both sculptural and thrown pottery.
Grambach has also secured grant funding to increase the number of Brandon Fellows from three to four. This 12-month program for emerging artists ages 18 to 25 will be filled with four women artists for the upcoming year.
Art Nook, launched in April 2026, is a partnership with ReCraft, Greenville’s creative re-use center. Open to the public, this whimsical space, Grambach says, “is a great place to engage with the arts for kids of all ages.”
Listen to Sara Grambach’s appearance on The Upstate Trail Talks podcast with Griffin Donley
New Leadership
The CEO is further amplifying the Center’s impact by bringing art out to meet people where they are. Now in its second year, the Aspiring Artists program, funded by South Carolina Arts Commission, is one way to accomplish this. During the program’s first year, GCCA provided after-school art instruction taught by the Center’s Brandon Fellows at two local community centers. Based on the success of that program, they added three Title I Greenville County schools. “We had 492 students go through the Aspiring Artists program this past school year, which is really incredible. That’s what really energizes me about the work we’re doing,” says Grambach, adding that the program is ongoing for the 2026–2027 school year.
Although her background is largely in health care, doing sales, marketing, and business development, Grambach has long been interested in the arts. As a child, she attended performances with her parents. Later, she pursued ballet, lyrical, and modern dance through her senior year at Wade Hampton High. During her years working in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she enjoyed access to the many art museums and performing arts venues that the Boston area offers.
“I want to see GCCA bustling and full of people in our community—a place where people are getting connected to arts . . . ,” she says.
While GCCA is ever a work in progress, Grambach is currently covering its canvas with intention and creativity, advancing the Center’s mission and strengthening the “tremendous cultural asset” she believes Greenville deserves.
Greenville Center for Creative Arts Events
Through October 28
CommUNITY: A Canvas of Greenville Cultures, Community Gallery
October 2–November 21
South Carolina Watermedia Society – 49th Annual Juried Exhibition, Main Gallery
Opening reception: Oct. 2, 5–8p.m.
September 30–October 2
Juror Workshop with David Stickel
9a.m.–4p.m. Sign up at scwatermedia.com/workshop.
November 5
Color the Night: Lasting Impression – GCCA’s annual fundraiser, 6–9p.m.
GCCA, 101 Abney St., Greenville, artcentergreenville.com
