For the first time in more than 45 years, the Bossier Arts Council has a new home — and it’s at the Louisiana Boardwalk.
The nonprofit’s board and staff cut the ribbon Tuesday at their new gallery and in-the-works theatre space at 355 Boardwalk Boulevard, and they revealed that former board member AmberDawn Landrum will be their new executive director.
Bossier City evicted the BAC from the city-owned Old Municipal Building in the East Bank District, which they occupied rent-free under an agreement, after it came to light that they had failed to submit financial reports required under state law to the Louisiana Legislative Auditor for three years in a row.
“I don’t think it’s any news to anyone that we’ve had some struggles this year, but I’m glad to announce that we are on a wonderful path forward into a new season of what the Bossier Arts Council is and what we offer,” said Board President Emerie Holtzclaw.
New space
The roughly-7,000 square-foot location is a mix of the old and the new for the BAC.
The East Bank Gallery in the Bossier Arts Council’s new space in the Louisiana Boardwalk on May 5, 2026 in Bossier City, La.
It includes two open-concept gallery spaces that Marketing Coordinator Alex Richardson said will carry over their old names: the East Bank Gallery and the Virginia Cook Gallery.
The space is tailored in part for people who want to pop in while walking around the Boardwalk, Richardson said. Their gift shop offerings are right inside the door, and the Virginia Cook Gallery has a seated lounge area with some storage space for books and the BAC’s script library — “a nice, cozy little area,” he said.
People peruse art on show at the Virginia Cook gallery in the Bossier Arts Council’s new space in the Louisiana Boardwalk on May 5, 2026 in Bossier City, La.
Adorning the walls are submissions for their “We’ve Got Your BAC” open call, a collection of pieces from past shows submitted by artists who wanted to help decorate the new space. They will be on display until June 1, and forthcoming events — like the BAC’s popular ARTini fundraiser scheduled for Oct. 3 — will be found on their Facebook page.
People peruse art on show at the East Bank Gallery in the Bossier Arts Council’s new space in the Louisiana Boardwalk on May 5, 2026 in Bossier City, La.
The site also has a small, currently-makeshift theatre space. There isn’t a stage yet, but Landrum, the new executive director, said the vision is for an intimate black box set-up. They are working on fundraising to build a stage, and she said they have already gotten interest in design and construction support from the community.
The Boardwalk, she said, “has been incredibly generous in helping us have an affordable experience here.” They are on a short-term lease through the end of the summer.
“We’ll reassess then and see kind of what the financials look like on our end and their end,” she said. “Because, like I said, there are some big things planning, but we don’t plan to leave unless something ‘big catastrophic’ or ‘big yay’ happened.”
The way forward
Landrum has her hands in a lot of things. On top of working as a visual artist in several media, she is also an actress who runs a homeschool acting troupe and a business owner who runs Stage to Screen Studio and Perfect Prints.
She said she got her acting start with the BAC when she was young. In 2020, in a kind of homecoming, she started renting studio space in the Old Municipal Building before getting “sucked into” programming classes and camps and eventually joining the board in January.
New Bossier Arts Council Executive Director AmberDawn Landrum speaks to a crowd at the BAC’s ribbon-cutting for their new Louisiana Boardwalk location on May 5, 2026 in Bossier City, La.
“I kind of realized that I was doing executive director things as a board member. So it was kind of just a natural transition to get here,” she said.
The BAC had been without an executive director since October, when Brittainy Pope fully stepped out of the position after serving for three years. Pope’s time at the helm coincided with the BAC’s period of reporting noncompliance, and while Landrum’s only nonprofit experience is with the BAC, she said she is dedicated to “making sure everything is done above-board.”
The BAC has been listed as non-compliant by the LLA for their 2023, 2024 and 2025 reports. Holtzclaw said everything is submitted to their CPA firm for 2023, and they have everything ready to submit for the subsequent years. The reports have to be completed sequentially.
The five-member board has also updated its bylaws and policies and procedures, and they are going to bring on more members from the applications they have received, Holtzclaw added. They are working with the Shreveport Regional Arts Council and LSU Shreveport’s Institute for Nonprofit Administration & Research for training.
“It wasn’t just a matter of a former director not doing something, and it was not a matter of a former board member not doing something,” Landrum said about the past financial reporting troubles. “It was all things at the same time.”
“I feel like we have all become very, very well-versed in a lot of things now that getting into that same situation, I honestly don’t see it happening again,” she added.
