Christmas is upon us, but no Santa Claus has yet come through to save the Center for Contemporary Arts, which after years of fragile finances appears on the verge of closing.

Lea Rekow, executive director of the Santa Fe nonprofit arts organization, confirmed Thursday that board members informed her the 30-year-old center would close on Thursday — unless an angel with a big wallet can be found to save the day. All film screenings at the center's popular art-house cinema have been canceled.

But CCA board member William Siegal said all is not lost, and that the board will meet again this weekend.

"There are potential situations, possibilities that would allow us to go forward much stronger than ever," he told The New Mexican on Thursday. "The situation has not yet been decided, and the board is working hard to do everything it can to keep the organization afloat and do right by the staff and the community."

Siegal said the latest crunch is related to the economy. "All funding sources are tight. All donor sources are tight. This applies to every single arts organization and nonprofit in the country, and I talk to lots of them."

Despite the board's hope that a financial savior is just over the horizon, Jason Silverman, director of the CCA's Cinematheque for about five years, confirmed Thursday that he had been told CCA is closing at year's end.

"Survival and scrappiness and operating for nickels and dimes became part of the CCA's DNA," he said. "And having figured out how to survive for all this time, I had a strange unreality bubble around the place in terms of its survival. So it is a shock on the one hand. On the other hand, the financial situation had been bad enough for long enough that there was an aura of inevitability around it."

Department of Cultural Affairs Secretary Stuart Ashman said a board member contacted him about how CCA would go about extricating itself from its lease with the state for the property off Old Pecos Trail.

Ashman said he told the board member that CCA would have to give 60 days notice, although he might be able to waive one of those months. But he said that he cannot doing anything at all until he gets a formal request from the CCA board.

CCA is up to date on its rent, Ashman said. During an earlier financial crisis, the state had agreed to allow CCA to defer its rent in exchange for a higher lease fee in the future. The nonprofit has paid $1,900 in each of the last two months.

Ashman said his understanding was that CCA had enough money to pay its bills with earned revenue, fundraisers and donations, but could not afford its debt. He also said it is too early to say what will become of the CCA property, although there are many organizations that would be interested in using it.

The closing will be felt in Santa Fe, Ashman noted. "If in fact CCA is going to disband, it will leave a void in the community because they've provided at niche in contemporary art for emerging artists in New Mexico for 30 years. It's a venerable institution."

Bob Gaylor, one of the founders of CCA, learned of its demise Wednesday. From his perspective, CCA's fate was determined in part by changes in grantmaking. "The philanthropy that made (institutions like CCA) possible doesn't exist any more," he said, citing the loss of major support from the National Endowment for the Arts and from state and local arts commissions. The NEA, Gaylor said, "Just doesn't support institutions and exhibitions, nor does the state arts commission or the city." Funding is "dribbled out in small parcels" and is "not enough to keep anything alive."

And in the current economy, "a lot of foundations are trying to pitch in and to help with social needs," he noted. "Funding for the arts is down (everywhere)." Gaylor predicted, "The arts will rise again in other ways. (But) maybe it's time to turn the page."

Steve Buck, a former director of CCA, noted that the financial downturn is hurting all foundations, and individuals, who support arts organizations. That's the global view, he said. But CCA also suffers from the fact that it's in Santa Fe, which has a dearth of corporate givers and lost one this year in Thornburg Mortgage. And, unlike Site Santa Fe, the other contemporary art exhibition space, it never had major ongoing support of foundations, he said.

He also blamed some of the problems on the lack of financial support from the board. "It takes a really strong, well-connected board, and, in my opinion, (CCA) didn't have it," Buck said. As director, he added, "I did all the fundraising."

And he alienated some when he tried to remove people from the board who didn't raise money, he said. When he took over in 2004, some members, he said, were "contributing at the level of a family membership."

Alan Fleischer, a former board chairman, called the closing a "major loss for the community as well as for the state. CCA was a great role model for a regional arts organization," he said.

He said he thought the problems, however, had more to do with hubris on the part of some leaders of CCA over the years than with money. "It's unfortunate that the combination of finances and political matters and personality conflicts would cost the community this great organization with its incredible history," he said.

Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or aconstable@sfnewmexican.com. Contact Robert Nott at 986-3021 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com.