WAAG Exhibition Brings Westerly’s Alternative Art Community Together at Studio 39A
WAAG Exhibition brings more than 20 members of the Westerly Alternative Artists Guild together Saturday, September 19, for an evening gallery exhibition and art market at Studio 39A in Westerly.
The show runs from 7 to 11 p.m. at the grassroots arts and music space at 39A Beach Street. The format combines an exhibition with a market, giving visitors a chance not only to see work by members of the newly organized guild but also to buy directly from participating artists.
Admission is particularly straightforward:
Bring a donation for the Westerly Animal Shelter.
WAAG Is Creating a Place for Artists Who Don’t Always Fit the Traditional Gallery Mold
The Westerly Alternative Artists Guild, or WAAG, is a relatively new addition to Westerly’s growing arts community.
And “alternative” is important to understanding what the group is trying to build.
Rather than defining art narrowly around traditional painting, sculpture or the kind of work usually selected for a conventional fine-art gallery, WAAG is assembling a community around artists working outside those boundaries.
The guild’s identity embraces the independent, experimental, DIY and sometimes unconventional side of making art.
That makes Friday’s exhibition as much an introduction to the organization as an art show.
More than 20 WAAG members are expected to participate.
With that many artists sharing one room, visitors should expect variety rather than a single curatorial theme or medium.
This Is Both an Exhibition and a Market
The poster makes an important distinction:
“A gallery & market art show.”
That means the evening isn’t designed solely around finished pieces hanging on a wall.
Artists will have work available to browse and purchase, turning Studio 39A into something closer to a temporary alternative-art marketplace.
For emerging artists, that direct connection can matter.
Traditional galleries generally select artists, curate exhibitions and take a commission when work sells. Markets and artist-run shows can remove some of those barriers, allowing creators to meet the people looking at their work and sell directly to them.
For visitors, it also means this isn’t necessarily an event where you’re expected to quietly circle the room with your hands behind your back.
Talk to the artists.
Ask what they make.
And if something grabs you, find out whether you can take it home.
Studio 39A Is a Natural Home for It
Studio 39A is an all-ages, grassroots art and music space at 39A Beach Street in Westerly.
The venue has become part of the area’s independent creative scene by providing a room for the kinds of artists and musicians who don’t necessarily have an obvious home elsewhere.
That includes intimate concerts and alternative music, but Studio 39A isn’t simply a small music venue.
It operates as a community-driven cultural space.
That’s an important distinction for an event like this.
Westerly already has established arts institutions, galleries and performance spaces. Studio 39A occupies a different part of that ecosystem: smaller, independent, informal and intentionally accessible.
WAAG fits naturally into that environment.
Westerly’s Art Scene Is Bigger Than It Looks
One of the interesting things about this show is the larger arts community developing around it.
Westerly has a surprising concentration of creative spaces within a relatively small area.
The long-established Artists’ Cooperative Gallery of Westerly operates as an artist-owned nonprofit gallery. The Hoxie Gallery presents exhibitions inside Westerly Library. Independent studios and shops have spread through downtown, while the Westerly Arts Crawl has helped connect artists with businesses and the public.
Studio 39A and WAAG represent another layer.
They’re not replacing those traditional institutions.
They’re creating an entry point for artists who may be younger, emerging, self-taught, experimental or simply uninterested in fitting their work into conventional categories.
A healthy local arts scene has room for both.
The DIY Poster Tells You Something About the Show
You don’t need much explanation of WAAG’s aesthetic after looking at the poster.
Hand lettering.
Uneven blocks of black ink.
A roughly drawn eye.
Almost everything appears deliberately handmade rather than digitally polished.
It’s closer to a punk-show flyer or photocopied zine than a conventional gallery invitation.
That visual language has a long history in independent art and music scenes.
Before anyone could build a slick social graphic on a phone, underground bands, artists and promoters made flyers with markers, typewriters, scissors, photocopiers and whatever else was available.
The imperfections became part of the identity.
WAAG’s poster carries that same DIY spirit.
It doesn’t look like an invitation to an institutional gallery opening because this isn’t trying to be one.
More Than 20 Artists Means You Probably Won’t Know What You’re Walking Into
That’s arguably the best reason to go.
A tightly curated solo exhibition gives you a deep look at one artist.
This is the opposite.
With 20-plus WAAG members participating, the point is discovery.
The currently available public announcement does not provide a complete roster of every exhibiting artist or a piece-by-piece catalog, and that’s information worth leaving open rather than guessing from social-media accounts associated with the organization.
What is confirmed is the scale: more than 20 members of the guild, a combination of gallery exhibition and art market, and four hours to explore it.
The organizers are also encouraging visitors to follow @waag39a for updates as the show approaches, so additional artist introductions may appear before Friday.
An Art Show for People Who Don’t Think They’re Art-Show People
Alternative community shows can do something larger institutions sometimes struggle with.
They can lower the psychological barrier to walking through the door.
You don’t need to understand art history.
You don’t need to know whether something qualifies as expressionism, assemblage, lowbrow art or anything else.
You don’t even have to like everything.
In fact, with more than 20 independent artists showing work, you almost certainly won’t.
That’s part of the fun.
Find the strange thing.
Find the funny thing.
Find the thing you don’t understand.
Find the artist whose work makes you stop for another 30 seconds when everything else gets five.
And if you’re someone making art at home who has never thought of yourself as the sort of person who belongs in a guild or gallery, pay attention to the people exhibiting.
That may be the larger point of WAAG.
A Four-Hour Snapshot of Westerly’s Alternative Art Scene
Westerly has no shortage of polished cultural institutions.
This is something else.
One night.
One grassroots studio.
More than 20 artists.
Artwork for sale.
A handmade flyer that looks like it was designed specifically to make a graphic designer nervous.
And admission that helps the WARM Center.
For WAAG, the exhibition is a chance to put a relatively new artistic community in one room and show Westerly what its members have been making.
For everyone else, it’s an opportunity to see what happens when the artists who don’t necessarily fit neatly into the established boxes decide to build their own box.
Then cover it with art.
Details
Event: WAAG Exhibition: A Group Show
Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
Time: 7–11 p.m.
Venue: Studio 39A
Address: 39A Beach Street, Unit 1, Westerly, RI 02891
Organizer: Westerly Alternative Artists Guild (WAAG)
Artists: More than 20 WAAG members
Format: Group gallery exhibition and art market
Artwork for Sale: Yes; the event is promoted as both a gallery and market show
Admission: Donation for the WARM Center
All Ages: Studio 39A operates as an all-ages community arts space
Updates: Follow @waag39a on Instagram for additional exhibition information and artist announcements
Featured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people, location, or activities shown.