Small Town Big Arts

Recenlty I opened my local paper in Lynchburg,VA and saw the following headline: "Orange County Board yanks arts center funding over drag design class." This struck a chord for many reasons. For those of us in the arts, there are a number of ways that cultural insitution's programming have fallen into an extreme right wing political playbook and this fit the mold. It also struck me because I serve...

This month we tackle the issues around maintaining an arts facility. If you are looking to build or renovate a building for the arts or have a building you deliver the arts through, this episode is worth a listen. Leading an organization that can both deliver its mission effectively and budget for facility depreciation is very difficult. We speak with Cyrus Pace at the Jefferson Center in Roanoke,...

We are making a pivot in the podcast in the coming months. We will be tackling specific subject matters that are pressing for those delivering the arts in smaller communities. Before we make this pivot, it is time to reflect on the fantastic organizations we have showcased so far. Common with all successful small community arts organizations are some specific qualities. I have identified 5 of them...

We have spoken with a wide range of organizations. We have looked at smaller community arts delivery in the farmlands of Wisconsin, in the mountains of Kentucky and even on the Alaskan coast. This month's episode we continue to examine the complex beauty of small town arts delivery in America when we speak with the leaders of a unique organization based in Arizona but whose mission operates transn...

This month we continue the story of my organization's 30 million dollar historic theatre restoration project. Over two podcasts I interview some key board members that were part of an organizational transformation that lead the Academy Center of the Arts out of a period of austerity, negativity, and debt and into an era that would see a completed theatre restoration project, a quadrupling of our o...

This month and next month, I am excited to share a part of my own story. From 2012 to 2015 I was straddling a tenure track position at a liberal arts college while also running a small theatre company here in Lynchburg, VA (pop. 79,697). I was plugged into the arts locally (I grew up in a nearby county) and I was very aware of the Academy of Fine Arts (later renamed the Academy Center of the Arts)...

In Episode 5 we switch things up and speak not with an organization delivering the arts in a smaller community but with someone here to support those organizations. This month we speak with the Program Director of the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, Heather Pontonio. Heather runs a program through her foundation called Artists Thrive. Artists Thrive (artiststhrive.org) helps artists and organizati...

This month's guest is Kristen Williams the Executive Director Riverzedge Arts in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Riverzedge was formed in 2002 by artists, youth development professionals and community leaders concerned about patterns of violence among disaffected youth in the wake of the Columbine shootings. Riverzedge is built on the philosophy that art is a powerful force for social change, and that c...

This month's guest is Executive Director Roger Schmidt of The Sitka Fine Arts Camp in Sitka, Alaska (pop. 8,500). The Sitka Fine Arts Camp was founded in 1973 to provide isolated Alaskan communities with little or no youth arts programs exposure and training in the arts. Because of remoteness and low population density, Alaskan youth are at a severe disadvantage in access to high quality arts. The...

This episode we speak with Wormfarm Institute founder and Executive Director Donna Neuwirth. Wormfarm Institute is in Sauk (Sock) County, Wisconsin. The county has a population of just over 65,000 people according to the 2020 census.  Wormfarm has become a national leader in rural creative placemaking. They describe themselves as an evolving laboratory of the arts and ecology and fertile ground fo...

As a preface to our first podcast, I have somber news but it is also a lesson in how strong small town organizations relate to their community. A day after this interview with Alex Gibson of Appalshop, their community of Letcher County, KY was struck by the severe floods of July 28th, 2022. The Appalshop facilities and archives were severely damaged. Their response was to not just look to their ow...

Hosted by Geoffrey Kershner, the CEO at the Academy Center of the Arts in Lynchburg, Virginia.