Real Art Ways is an alternative multidisciplinary arts organization that presents and supports contemporary artists and their work, facilitates the creation of new work, and creatively engages, builds, and informs audiences and communities. Real Art Ways is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that depends on the support of our members and community to continue delivering on our mission of innovative exhibitions and programming.Real Art Ways is committed to artists and to community. We have built a national reputation for supporting innovation and for connecting people with art and ideas. We work with emerging and established artists, and we have a diverse and dynamic audience. All are welcome here.Real Art Ways began in the fall of 1975 when a group of visual artists and musicians took over a rambling upstairs space on Asylum Street in downtown Hartford and created a bare bones salon in which they lived, worked and presented the work of others. Across the country alternative ideas were being explored and developed – and that idea of alternativity to the mainstream remains central to Real Art Ways' work.Today, Real Art Ways is widely regarded as one of the country's outstanding contemporary art spaces, one that has a special link with its own community. With films, concerts, performances, readings, exhibitions, and a space where people gather before and after events, Real Art Ways is a unique meeting place for people to come together around art, ideas, and conversation.