Fuller Lodge Art Center opens fourth annual Come As You Are show

Fuller Lodge Art Center used Pride Month to turn one of Los Alamos County’s best-known spaces into a public statement about belonging. The fourth annual Come As You Are show opened Friday with an evening reception, putting colorful works centered on identity inside the historic Fuller Lodge complex and giving residents a place to gather, look and be seen.

The opening ran from 5 to 8 p.m. June 12, with light refreshments for visitors, and the exhibit remained on view through July 3. That long run mattered in a small county where not everyone can make an opening night, and it gave families, downtown visitors and regular arts patrons more than one chance to stop in at 2132 Central Ave.

The show’s return for a fourth year also signaled that it has moved beyond a one-off Pride Month gesture. The third annual Come As You Are exhibit ran in 2025, and the 2026 edition again landed in the middle of local Pride programming, including Los Alamos County’s proclamation of June 7-13 as LGBTQ+ Pride Week. The Los Alamos Pride Festival was scheduled the same day, Friday, June 12, from 3 to 7 p.m. at Central Park Square, adding another public venue where identity and community visibility were on display.

That overlap gave the arts center’s exhibit a sharper civic edge. In Los Alamos, gallery space often functions as more than a place to hang art, and Come As You Are fit squarely into that role by offering a welcoming room for residents who want to see themselves reflected in public life. The Los Alamos Arts Council, which now includes Fuller Lodge Art Center, says it has promoted community engagement in the arts since 1967, and this show continued that mission with a clear focus on inclusion.

The building itself reinforced the message. Fuller Lodge was built in 1928 by architect John Gaw Meem and later served as the dining hall for the Los Alamos Ranch School and as a community center for Manhattan Project workers. In the 1960s, the Atomic Energy Commission sold the lodge to Los Alamos County for $1, with the stipulation that it remain a community center, a condition that still shapes how the site is used today. Against that history, Come As You Are made the lodge not just a backdrop for art, but a place where public belonging was made visible.