A moment in time....

What in the world is happening in Greenwood?
Anne Craig, executive director of the Greenwood Arts Council since 1997, talks about the current landscape in the following November 2009  Q & A  interview with S.C. Arts Commission liaison Susan DuPlessis.

Q: What’s your budget looking like this year compared to FY09?
Anne: We started this fiscal year by cutting our budget $65,000 (FY09 expenses were $240,000; this year we’ve budgeted for $185,000 in expenses).
Q: Wow. That’s a 37% decrease.

Anne: Yes, we’re anticipating a lean year; we’ve cut one full time position (leaving a total staff of two) but we’ve hardly cut any programming. We’re still trying to do it all.
Q:  That’s the challenge, isn’t it? Negotiating a year with less funding while your plate stays as full as ever.
Anne:  Well, we have scaled back some of our vision for outreach into surrounding counties since we have less manpower. We’ve also cut one small program.
Q:  Has you strategy changed for how you will be involved with any of your current partners or programs?
Anne:  Yes, we’ve stepped up our connection with the schools and our programming reflects that. We’ve turned the space that housed our sales shop into a special exhibits gallery. Each month, we’re hosting a show of work from a different school and having a reception for the students from that school.
Q: Are you doing anything special during National Education Week in November?
Anne: We’ve turned November into National Education Month and are focused on Arts Education. Arts teachers have shared lesson plans with us and then we have the corresponding student work exhibited that resulted from that lesson.


We’ve got to stay closely in touch with the education establishment. We need to complement what’s happening in the schools. We’ll build more participation in our summer camps and arts classes from this.
Q: Is there anything else you might work on this year to strengthen ties to the community?
Anne:   I would love to have the resources to develop a young contemporaries group. We’ve already had some early success with this working with a young artist from Lander whose work we exhibited. His opening brought in 80 to 90 young people who had never been in our space before.
Q:   That sounds like a great start. And I understand you have an exhibit in you main gallery this month that you’re getting lots of buzz about?
Anne:  Yes—this show also features younger artists –all 20-somethings whose work is causing a bit of a stir in town. I have had a number of people ask when the show’s reception is. People want to come meet the artists. It’s exciting.
Q:  What is one thing you’ve observed in doing the work you do?
Anne:   People generally come to visit the gallery because they know the artist—not because they want to see great art.
Q:   Is there anything else that’s critical to the work you’re doing as an executive director of a local arts agency?
Anne:  It would be helpful to me to know how much funding other arts organizations get from their local governments. I could use that information to leverage more local government support here.
Q:   This is something several LAAs have asked for. The good news is: the compilation is in the works and will be shared with all LAA executive directors via this Blogsite.


Thanks Anne!