CCA, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last spring, evolved from what was the Rising Sun Media Arts Center in 1978. Founding members included Bob Gaylor, Linda Klosky, Alton Walpole, Suzanne Jamison, Tom McCarthy and Annie Campbell, who secured the former National Guard Armory on Old Pecos Trail as a home base and christened it the Armory for the Arts.

In 1979, the group was reorganized and given its current name, and in 1983 CCA became fully incorporated as a nonprofit organization. In 1988, Gaylor, with Suby Bowden and Bob Eggers, created The Teen Project, which later separated as its own entity and became Warehouse 21.

Gaylor ran the institution until 1995. Upon his departure, 15 years of financial and managerial instability followed. Financial decisions were questioned, board turnover was swift, and a lot of paperwork — including unpaid bills leftover from previous administrations — fell through the cracks. Executive directors came in and out of the place as if moving through a revolving door; few lasted more than two years. Although the organization continued to present respected visual and performance artists and maintained a popular art cinema, by the late 1990s CCA's debt was reported as more than $150,000.

In 2006 the state Legislature approved a 99-year lease on the property which CCA hoped was going to make it easier to raise capital to expand. When former director Steve Buck left in the summer of 2007, he claimed CCA was in good financial shape, but soon afterward it was reported that the organization couldn't pay its construction bills for the new Muñoz Waxman Gallery.

CCA still owes money to the construction company for that project and has other unpaid bills related to the new gallery. Peter Brill of Sarcon Construction said Thursday he isn't so concerned about the money. "It's all the effort, all the tremendous effort to work with them and help them (pay their bills. CCA) is an important part of this community."

Lea Rekow took over CCA just a year ago and acknowledged, in a January interview with The New Mexican, that she came into the job without a "clear picture" of CCA's financial status. The organization scaled back its programming and staff over the course of this past year, but the wolf continued to perch outside the front door.