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Each year since 1997, CityBeat‘s “State of the Arts” issue has offered a list that reflects our opinions about people who are influential, people who make a difference in the local arts world. Of course, those people don’t change much from year to year; influential people tend to remain influential. Reprinting that list annually doesn’t make for interesting or insightful reading. We all know — and appreciate — the philanthropic support provided by Lois and Richard Rosenthal and Otto Budig Jr., the corporate generosity and leadership of Procter & Gamble and the Cinergy Foundation and the political leadership of City Councilman Jim Tarbell and his Arts & Culture Committee. But occasionally we try to give readers a glimpse at others who make a difference.
For instance, two years ago we listed younger arts professionals and volunteers we thought were the “Next Influentials.” Heading that set was Contemporary Arts Center Chief Curator Thom Collins. Shortly after we put him at the top of the heap, he expanded his sphere of influence by moving to Baltimore to head the Contemporary Museum there. (He continues to be an influential professional: In August he moved again, taking on the directorship of the Neubarger Museum of Art at the State University of New York campus at Purchase College.)
In second place were the guys who created the MidPoint Music Festival for the first time, Sean Rhiney and Bill Donabedian.
That was a justifiable pick: They continue to show how it’s possible to get things done here.
In fact, their success set us to thinking about another kind of list: Who are the people who really get things done in the arts? It’s a big list — and the “things” such people do are countless. But we’ve selected 25 people (actually there are a few more than 25 since some of them are teams) we think you should know.
They aren’t ranked, because we’re not assessing their relative importance. (You’ll find them in alphabetical order, in fact.) The truth is they’re all important, and we hope you agree.
When you appreciate a performance at Madcap Puppet Theatre or the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, visit a stimulating facility like Covington’s Carnegie Visual + Performing Arts Center or the 1305 Gallery, brag about our local independent music scene or our cool Blues festival, you’re benefiting from the efforts of these people who know how to make great art happen. And we really mean happen.
Christine Arnison, today the managing director of Madcap Puppet Theatre, came to Madcap after a more than 20 years of work in marketing and communications, holding executive positions with companies like AT&T, British Telecom and France Telecom. But she was drawn to the nonprofit sector and consulted with organizations like the Red Cross and Smithsonian Institution. She moved to Cincinnati in 2001 and signed up with Business Volunteers for the Arts, sponsored by the Fine Arts Fund’s Arts Services Office. She was assigned to Madcap and before long found herself entrenched in the nation’s largest touring puppet theater.
She didn’t count on a sad turn of fate earlier this year when founder and creative inspiration Jerry Handorf died unexpectedly, but Arnison has provided a steady hand to sustain the organization through a difficult time. A search for a new artistic director is under way, and thanks to Arnison and the rest of the hardworking staff and dedicated board Madcap has a bright future.
Betsy Neyer, president of Madcap’s board, says, “We’re very lucky to have Christine at the helm. Madcap is a much loved organization with the capacity to introduce even more children to the arts, and her leadership and vision will be instrumental in getting us there.”
Paul and Matt Coors created Publico Gallery in 2003 as a space on Over-the-Rhine’s Clay Street to serve as an outlet for students from the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Two years later, as the Art Academy moves to a nearby block, the brothers have transformed their raw space into a premier gallery, offering a growing array of inventive, contemporary art. They also launched Grouper, a semi-annual arts collective publication.
Their efforts are getting a lot of notice, and they’re beginning to present multi-genre exhibitions by artists all over the country. With its inviting size and setting, Publico stands with only a few galleries (The Mockbee and Carl Solway) as a space dedicated to showcasing contemporary, innovative works. Their efforts prove Cincinnati is still capable of pushing the envelope toward artistic success, and with the involvement of more creative talents like Jimmy Baker Publico should continue to be the epicenter of Cincinnati’s visual arts scene and a magnet to bring national artists to a still hungry Midwestern audience.
Carissa Barnard, production manager at the Contemporary Arts Center, has been working in and around the visual arts in Cincinnati for almost a decade. After earning her art degree from UC, the native Californian tried several paths, including corporate and academia, but they didn’t afford her enough time to create art. She landed at The Mockbee, where she partnered with Chris Daniel to put the massive warehouse building on a stable footing as an arts facility. After a year and a half she felt things were in order (Daniel is now the executive director) and moved to a position at the Contemporary Arts Center, an institution she’d been connected with in many ways over the years. She oversees events like the preview parties and Contemporary Fridays in addition to managing the CAC’s below-street-level Performance Space.
Her CAC job allows her to work in art during the day and then go home and be creative. Her studio is still in The Mockbee, so she spends a lot of time there and in nearby Brighton, a beehive of artistic activity. Artistically speaking, Barnard calls herself a jack-of-all-trades. Her M.F.A. was in printmaking, but she’s also a painter whose work has evolved in structural directions, particularly in the form of installations. She’ll exhibit some of her new paintings at Semantics Gallery (opening Oct. 29 and running through November), and she’s involved in a group show of women’s work at the Zanesville Art Center in August 2006 where she’ll create an installation involving a large-scale painting.
Jason Bruffy is the creative force behind the Cincinnati Fringe Festival and also serves as the artistic director for Over-the-Rhine’s Know Theatre Tribe. Originally from New Jersey, he moved to Cincinnati to act with the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival. He conceived and pushed forward the idea of a Fringe Festival to showcase alternative performance artists — theater that’s more experimental than what’s usually seen here — which has now had two successful iterations.
The Fringe now operates under the umbrella of another organization Bruffy created, Cincinnati Experimental Arts, which nurtures various arts organizations and artists, including the Moving Art Dance Company. He’s in his second season with Know Theatre, for whom he recently directed Matt & Ben. Two of the Know Theatre productions he directed, Streamers and The Good Thief, were nominated for 2005 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards.
Nancy Henry Chadwick came to the Carnegie Visual + Performing Arts Center in Covington as its development director in 2004. A few months after arriving, she was promoted to executive director, and she’s been pivotal in keeping this arts institution on track with renovations and new programming. The Carnegie was named an Associate Member of the Fine Arts Fund in 2004, and it won the 2004 Kentucky Governor’s Award in the Arts in Arts Education. Chadwick is overseeing the long-awaited $2.5 million renovation of the former library building’s historic 450-seat auditorium with a capital campaign. It’s envisioned as a venue for arts, family and community events.
Chadwick has reached out to the community and brought more than 4,000 people to the facility in the past year. “She looked on the whole place with a fresh perspective and pushed the potential,” says one board member. “We were ready to go to that next level of effort and exposure. She gave us the big shove to make it happen.”
Under Chadwick’s leadership, the Carnegie was selected as one of 27 mid-sized arts organizations nationally to attend a seminar on arts marketing. And she’s not out of ideas yet. She masterminded the creation of a young professionals group that hosts its first fund-raiser for the Carnegie on Oct. 15.
Marvel Gentry Davis is president of the board of directors of ballet tech ohio performing arts organization, a nonprofit organization founded in 1997 that uses dance as a means to promote unity and interaction between people of all walks of life. Davis’ title actually means she’s a volunteer, although most people who have any contact with the organization would swear she must be a full-time staff member. In fact, Davis is an expert in high tech solution sales and management; she’s worked for respected companies in Chicago and Cincinnati and is listed in Who’s Who of Business and Professional Women and Who’s Who International.
But it’s Davis’ passion for dance that drives her: She has been a dancer since the age of 4, with proficiency in ballet, jazz, modern, tap, African, Balinese, belly dancing and ballroom dancing. Each year ballet tech ohio presents dance programs featuring professional and pre-professional dancers. The most public dimension of Davis’ work has been as executive producer for the annual Gala of International Ballet Stars, a summer fund-raiser which takes place in both Columbus and Cincinnati (here at the Aronoff Center), featuring dancers from top companies around the world.
Matt Distel, associate curator at the Contemporary Arts Center, is one busy guy. The graduate of Colerain High and Miami University made a name for himself as an independent curator with the CulturalMachine Complex, and he ran the very progressive DiLeia Contemporary Gallery, an alternative space that focused on projects by regional and national emerging artists, performance, participatory works, music, athletic competitions and stunts. He joined the CAC in 2002 and was named one of CityBeat‘s likely “Next Influentials” in 2003.
Today he’s responsible for negotiating and managing all touring exhibitions, providing support for each exhibition you see at the CAC, and assisting with programming of all curatorial projects. If you’re intrigued by what you see when you visit the Contemporary Arts Center, it’s because Distel saw it first and thought it was a something that would make people say, “Hmmm.”
Bill Donabedian and Sean Rhiney, as we mentioned earlier, served as a kind of inspiration for this exploration of people who get things done via their growing enterprise, the MidPoint Music Festival, about to mark its fourth year. They got only minimal notice back in 2002 when they launched a festival of new music by bands from around the nation (and the world, for that matter) inspired by the legendary South By Southwest in Austin, Texas. But now they’re on everyone’s radar.
This year’s event (Sept. 21-24) will be another round of informative panels at the Contemporary Arts Center and musical performances by almost 300 artists, mostly in Over-the-Rhine. Last year they drew more than 40,000 attendees, and there’s a consensus that it’s now the Midwest’s biggest and best music festival.
Rich Eiswerth heads up Cincinnati Classical Public Radio, Inc. You might not know CCPR, but you’ve probably listened to Classical music on WGUC. This year Eiswerth has overseen a revolution on the low end of the FM dial after he learned that Xavier University planned to sell the licenses for WVXU-FM and its X-Star Network. “Obtaining a second frequency to better serve our Classical music and news audiences has been a core part of WGUC’s ongoing strategic plan for the past five years,” he says.
On Aug. 22 the “new” WVXU began broadcasting under CCPR’s management, offering a steady dose of news from NPR, the BBC and elsewhere bolstered by a substantial local news team. Eiswerth, who arrived at WGUC in 1998 with 20 years of non-commercial radio experience in Washington, D.C., Florida and West Virginia, says, “We see this as a new era for public radio in Cincinnati and a step that will ensure the diversity of local, non-commercial programming and continue Cincinnati’s proud broadcast heritage.” Eiswerth’s pragmatic leadership and clear strategic vision have shaped what we’ll be hearing for years to come on all-news WVXU and all-tunes WGUC.
Barry Gee works for Convergys, but he’s so involved in other activities you wonder if he ever sleeps. He was one of the founders of Cincinnati Tomorrow, which has morphed into Cincinnati Advance, of which he’s now the executive director. He’s also a leader of the Greater Cincinnati Blues Society and has been an organizer of the Cincy Blues Fest; next year he’ll be the summertime festival’s director. Cincinnati Advance works on building and marketing a city that attracts and retains creative and young people. To that end it organizes projects and events with an emphasis on the urban core, most particularly weekly “After 5 walks” that put people in various neighborhoods. Under Gee’s leadership, the organization sponsors, promotes (often by partnering with other groups) and plans cost-effective events.
Regarding the 13-year-old Blues Fest, Gee takes the reins in 2006. He’s committed to spreading the gospel of the Blues. “I think our reputation has grown and solidified,” he says. “I think we’ve expanded the talent every year and we’ll continue to do that.” He wants to keep the festival manageable but hopes to appeal to a wider audience.
Heather Hallenberg directs the Art Services Office at the Fine Arts Fund. She’s someone who has regularly been on our list of influentials, but it would be impossible to leave her off this list. The ASO shapes the fortunes and futures of small and mid-sized arts organizations, many of which operate on limited means and with minimal staffs. The modest but supremely thorough Hallenberg has nurtured an array of programs that recruit people with business expertise to help organizations via an array of programs, including Business Volunteers for the Arts and Business on Board. Christine Arnison and Lori Wellinghoff on this year’s list, for instance, first connected with their respective organizations through the Business Volunteers for the Arts program.
Hallenberg also spurred a group of volunteers to create a Virtual Arts Incubator, a one-stop Web-based resource that offers vital information for pre-incorporated, start-up and very young arts organizations. Her constant goal is to help arts organizations help themselves, and she seems to be a bottomless well of helpfulness.
Dennis Harrington became director of the Alice and Harris J. Weston Gallery at the Aronoff Center downtown in July 1998. He had the difficult task of replacing the beloved Salli LoveLarkin, who steered the gallery for its first three years (she retired for health reasons and died about a year later). As her assistant, Harrington learned the successful formula of offering a wide mix of exhibitions. When it comes to visual art, the Weston —which celebrated its 10th anniversary earlier this year — remains active and creative 365 days a year.
Harrington adheres to a mission of showcasing the best local and regional talent, a philosophy that LoveLarkin established at the long-shuttered CAGE gallery (Cincinnati Artists’ Group Effort). Harrington and his assistant, Kelly O’Donnell, have created their own impressive legacy as the city’s most consistently intriguing gallery — made all the more important by its prominent downtown location at Seventh and Walnut streets.
Joni Herschede has been a philanthropist for years, and the support of the woman who once owned and operated a prominent downtown jewelry store has gone well beyond the arts: She’s been a significant donor to advance women’s athletics at the University of Cincinnati. But she’s made a particular difference over the past year with a gift of about $1 million to the Cincinnati Memorial Hall Society, enabling a $3.5 million face lift for the 1908 building next door to Music Hall in Over-the-Rhine constructed as a memorial to Hamilton County’s war veterans.
Memorial Hall is set to become the home of the American Classical Music Hall of Fame, which has been a tenant in Herschede’s former retail space on Fourth Street. In particular, her contribution will be used to spiff up the 610-seat auditorium and provide air conditioning throughout the building. Society president and Hall of Fame founder David Klingshirn says, “This building will become another jewel for the arts in Cincinnati.” Herschede also told news media in May she saw the revitalization of Memorial Hall as another catalyst for positive change in Over-the-Rhine.
If it weren’t for Jefferson James we wouldn’t see much contemporary dance in Cincinnati. The one-time dancer who created Contemporary Dance Theater in 1972 has morphed it from a dance company to a presenter of touring performers. Annually she brings a half-dozen dance companies to present at the Aronoff Center’s Jarson-Kaplan Theater for a series of Friday-Saturday performances. If you pay attention to their names — this year they include Ron Brown’s Evidence, Risa Jaroslow & Dancers, Bridgman/Packer Dance Ben Munisteri Dance Projects and Phoenix Dance Theatre — and compare them to the companies who perform regularly in big cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco, you’ll see what kind of clout she has.
But the diminutive, wry James also keeps things percolating locally. The annual “Choreographers Without Companies” program (typically in early June) is a chance to see work by local dancers and people who make dance, and it’s a showcase that will prove to you that dance is an art form to celebrate here in Cincinnati.
Jay Kalagayan is executive director of the Know Theatre Tribe, a group that endeavors to reach out to diverse and underserved audiences. We’ve offered his name up before. (He was on the 2003 list of “Next Influentials.”) He has a canny way of bringing on board creative talent to further the mission of the company he founded right after graduating from Xavier University in 1997. He convinced CCM theater professor Michael Burnham to direct a production of Terrence McNally’s controversial Corpus Christi two years ago. That show brought Know a lot of notice (some would say notoriety).
With the attention of a larger audience, Kalagayan recruited Jason Bruffy (also on this list for his efforts to create the Fringe Festival) to serve as Know’s artistic director, a move that’s led to a higher-level artistic product onstage at Gabriel’s Corner in Over-the-Rhine. Kalagayan, who works as a private-duty nurse, has done whatever’s been needed to sustain his theater company — he’s served as director, playwright, grant writer and actor.
Alan Patrick Kenny and Joshua Steele brought to the creation of their theater organization, New Stage Collective, a brash notion that they could do almost anything. And despite their relative youth — both are recent college grads (Kenny from New York University and Steele from Ohio State University) — and the fact that their artistic product has largely involved similarly young performers, they’ve been the creators of some startling theater. They’ve undertaken productions of several Stephen Sondheim musicals (including the Cincinnati premiere of his 1984 Pulitzer Prize winner, Sunday in the Park with George) and this summer landed in a downtown venue at the CAC.
Their work hasn’t been perfect, but it’s been a kick to watch them bite off chunks of exciting theater and spit out productions that are intriguing and imaginative. Kenny has landed an assistant position with Playhouse in the Park’s production of another Sondheim show, this fall’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Between these two dynamos, it’s likely that more intriguing theater will be coming our way.
Lilly Mulberry, who recently opened 1305 Gallery in Over-the-Rhine, graduated from UC’s College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning (DAAP) in 2003. She’s been a longtime resident of Over-the-Rhine, once living in an apartment upstairs at 1305 Main Street. Her gallery is in a space she once knew as an African grocery, since gone out of business. She sees her space as a chance to give Main Street the shot in the arm it desperately needs, a retail art gallery.
“I am trying to get people to come out to Over-the-Rhine any time, not just for a night out,” she says. “People come here on weekends for the bars, but I want people to feel there is an arts scene here. I want this space to be a place where the focus is on the artwork.” The Northern Kentucky native who bartends to pay the bills has created Main Street’s first garage gallery, a true one-woman show and shoestring effort that makes up for a lack of money and resources with belief in the arts. She shares the vision held by many that OTR is Cincinnati’s arts neighborhood, and she’s spending her time, money and energy to do something about it.
Lisa Mullins has been running Enjoy the Arts for 15 years, and she started there a few years earlier — so for close to two decades she’s been finding ways to connect younger audiences with Cincinnati’s vibrant arts scene. She’s been another regular on our influentials list, but we couldn’t talk about people who get things done without mentioning her.
ETA has a small budget and a modest staff, but they work wonders. The startling success of their 20th anniversary celebration (20 Days and 20 Nights, now dubbed the 20/20 Festival) will see its fourth incarnation in late September. Over the past year, Mullins lost several key staff members and found some equally able folks to replace them, without missing a beat and in fact dreaming up several new ways to connect teens and young professionals with affordable arts events.
Sculptor Pat Renick is retired from the University of Cincinnati, but you’d never know it, given the energy she continues to throw into her many projects. You might have seen her glistening 11-foot tall stainless steel structure “30 Module Sphere #1” along Central Parkway at Brighton Street. She continues to earn significant commissions, including one recently from Procter & Gamble. In 2003 she was honored as the “outstanding sculpture educator” by the International Sculpture Center in a Cincinnati benefit that supported the New Jersey-based organization.
But Renick has done more than mentor and create: Her connection with ISC means that it’s likely that the first big conference celebrating “sculpture cities” around the world will happen here next year, one more way for the rest of the world to learn about Cincinnati’s arts scene. Not a tall woman, Renick used a megaphone to overcome her colleagues’ chatter when she announced the conference: “Please consider, in the studio of your minds, what all this means to sculpture in Cincinnati.” She told them being the pilot program for International Sculpture Cities is “fresh clay — we can form it any way we want.” That’s language that sculptors and the rest of us can relate to.
Greg Smith, president of the Art Academy of Cincinnati, has earned a lot of accolades in recent weeks as his dream of relocating the 135-year-old institution to 12th and Jackson streets in Over-the-Rhine has become a reality. Not only has he championed this vision and persuaded many others to share it, he’s now responsible for an institution that will make a big difference in the neighborhood’s ongoing development.
With faculty and students in the beautifully renovated and updated building that once housed a printing company, the Art Academy has become the laboratory for the creative class and the catalyst for even more growth and vitality in an area that is yearning for change. Smith has been — and will continue to be — a key player.
Jeff Syroney came to Cincinnati from Cleveland two years ago, where he worked for a theater company. His first local position was handling publicity and marketing for the Cincinnati Ballet, but it didn’t take long for the affable and inquisitive Syroney to engage in the arts scene. He connected with Jason Bruffy, also on this list, to launch the Cincinnati Fringe Festival in 2004, and he found himself involved in organizing all kinds of other events focusing on Over-the-Rhine.
Then he connected with a kindred spirit, Kathy Holwadel, a one-time investment adviser who wanted to do something that would make a more immediate difference in people’s lives. She’d conceived of an organization she called InkTank, an organization that would seek to “change Cincinnati one word at a time.” Syroney was the perfect choice to become its executive director, and he’s been a tireless advocate for the written and spoken word for the past year at InkTank’s Main Street storefront (or World Headquarters, as they’ve termed it). There they have programs that “educate, celebrate and agitate,” plus you can find some startling second-hand treasures at “Rubbish, The Perpetual Yardsale” that InkTank uses to pay the rent. Syroney is the major domo of this great show, and he has the words needed to keep it going.
Dr. Robert Thierauf taught for many years at Xavier University, but we suspect many of his former students in information systems (the professor emeritus is the author of 31 books about business and information technology) might be surprised to know that he’s become an arts patron. He has a lot of other passions (including involvement with the Rolls Royce Owners Club), but over the last two years he’s stepped up to the plate to make it possible for some interesting things to happen on various local theater stages.
He was a significant personal backer of the 2004 and 2005 Cincinnati Fringe Festivals, and during the 2004-05 theater season he was a design sponsor for the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival and underwrote Ensemble Theatre’s production of While We Were Bowling. The Fringe Festival’s Jason Bruffy says, “For the small arts, he’s a big patron.” He adds, “He’s not typical or high-profile as a sponsor. He liked the Fringe because it offered a lot of new works in one big event, and he saw more shows than almost anyone. We call him the ‘godfather of the Fringe.’ ”
Kathy Wade has a reputation as a Jazz singer, but she’s also used her art to make things happen. In particular, we’d cite Learning Through Art, her nonprofit performing arts organization that presents educational programs and workshops. Wade pretty much single-handedly uses her singing and storytelling skills to teach kids about music history, the role of music in various cultures and how things like phonics, timing and rhythm relate to basic literacy and math skills. In the process, she subtly sends messages about respect, self-reliance and setting goals.
Wade extends her influence with her summertime concert series, The ‘Hood Is Bigger Than You Think, and her regular “Crown Jewels of Jazz” concert, which features international musicians and female Jazz artists. It’s her own personal crusade to cultivate an audience for Jazz, which she calls America’s classical music. She’s convinced a lot of people.
Lori Wellinghoff, as noted earlier, came to Enjoy the Arts as a Business Volunteer for the Arts three years ago. The veteran sales and marketing executive (she was a senior with Clear Channel Advantage, serving a national clientele at the time) was given a big challenge by ETA’s Lisa Mullins, who didn’t want to mark the organization’s 20th anniversary with a black-tie event. Wellinghoff conceived of a festival celebrating the arts and organized a three-week shebang that exceeded everyone’s expectations. She inspired a core of volunteer leaders (many of whom do voluntarily what they charge others for) to keep it going.
With a mantra of “Go big or go home,” Wellinghoff has expansive plans. “We plan to take it up a notch every year,” she says, aspiring to rival the renowned Spoleto Festival, with a twist: Instead of arts imported from around the world, 20/20 showcases the Cincinnati arts scene. This year’s fourth annual event will feature 60 organizations (there are 300 that could be involved, she claims) presenting 80 events in 20 neighborhoods. Speaking of going home, Wellinghoff has that covered, too: Her new business, DIGS, is a design, real estate and construction agency providing one-stop shopping to make a house a home. Her innovative thinking covers a lot of territory.
Tracy Wilson has been part of the Cincinnati Opera for 20 years. As director of community relations, she connects with people all over the Tristate, perhaps never more effectively than in the past year when she helped to build an incredible audience for the summer 2005 premiere of Margaret Garner, an original opera re-telling a tragic story of slavery that originated on a Kentucky farm not far from Cincinnati. Wilson coordinated more than 50 free events and programs to anticipate Margaret Garner‘s performance.
Wilson has been the organizer and producer for the popular “Community Open Dress Rehearsal,” an annual opera evening in June that combines a neighborhood festival in Over-the-Rhine’s Washington Park across from Music Hall with attendance at a free performance of a rehearsal for one of the opera’s summer productions. Thousands of residents of Over-the-Rhine and the West End have had the chance to see opera thanks to her efforts. Selected in 2003 for “Who’s Who in Black Cincinnati,” Wilson serves on many boards and committees that further engage her in the community, and her experience in developing community-based programs has been sought by businesses, arts and community organizations nationwide. But it’s here in Cincinnati where she’s really made things happen. ©
This article appears in Aug 31 – Sep 6, 2005.
