New Directors Energize Covington Arts
The Covington Arts scene is getting a shot of vitality with the arrival of new directors at the The Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center and its neighbor, the Covington Arts District.
Both Katie Brass and Natalie Bowers arrived in Covington just last fall. Brass came to the Carnegie Arts Center from Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center where she was development director.
And Bowers, a native of New Jersey, spent eight years in London working for a hedge fund before coming to Covington. While in London, Bowers also was a marketing director for a theater company and was an executive in philanthropy for the arts.
Now, Bowers said she is looking to apply "all the skills I have learned" as Covington Arts District manager.
Brass is the third director of the Carnegie Center in just four years. Between 2000 and 2006, the Carnegie, a former 1902 library located at 1028 Scott Blvd. at Robbins Street, was caught up in a major expansion and renovation.
But now, with the painters and plasterers gone, Brass is busy bringing fiscal discipline designed to keep Carnegie Center programs humming while preventing the budget from a shrieking deficit.
The Carnegie Center, Northern Kentucky's leading arts organization, is a multi-faceted operation. There is an 11-month exhibition season averaging 40 shows. Its Otto M. Budig theater, renovated at a cost of $2.5 million, offers theater, films and musical programs.
And arts education for children takes place in the Carnegie's Eva G. Farris wing facing Robbins Street.
Most new directors, wishing to make a quick impact, often come to their jobs brimming with ambitious but costly ideas. But Brass keeps herself in a fiscal strait-jacket when it comes to flights of ego.
"There is stuff that I would love to do," she said. "But I don't think you are going to hear any organization for profit or non-profit even mention the word 'new' in the next year."
The Carnegie's current fiscal year's budget of a little over $1 million will fall in 2009-2010 to $850,000.
"That's just because we need to be careful," Brass said. "We've cut marketing money. I realize that radio ads are important but they are $6,000 for one show. We're not doing it anymore."
Mailings also will be limited to members and supporters, not the entire mailing list of 9,000 names.
Perhaps most significantly, theater presentations will be cut back.
"This year, we were supposed to do four theater series; next year we're only doing three," Brass said.
Brass also extended her aversion to risk to Carnegie personnel.
"I told the staff I'm not trying to rein in any artistically meritorious things but I don't want any new programs."
Instead, Brass wants to continue to maintain the excellence already in place. She wants to keep Gallery Director Bill Seitz's policy of using the Carnegie Gallery spaces primarily as showcases for Greater Cincinnati artists.
While the Carnegie wants to feature emerging artists, Brass says they occasionally need a little push to show in the galleries.
"There are a lot of great artists in this area who do not apply to the 'Call to Artists' that we do," Brass said.
The 'Call to Artists' is a solicitation museums and galleries use to invite artists to participate in exhibitions.
"I told Bill to start making a lot more studio visits and to meet some of the artists in the area," Brass said.
The result of these studio visits will be an additional exhibition featuring new artists that Seitz would personally select. This will be in addition to the exhibitions gleaning participants from the annual 'Call to Artists.'
Brass also believes that it's important to preserve the inviting atmosphere of the Carnegie itself, especially for newcomers.
From personal experience, Brass recalled the angst she felt in regard to her exposure to much of the complex art she saw while working at the Contemporary Arts Center.
"Some of their shows were very hard," she recalled. "I would walk into the galleries and think, 'I don't even know what I just saw and I don't understand it.'
"And I wouldn't understand it unless I had Thom Collins or Matt Distel (former chief curators at CAC) sit down and explain it to me.
"Part of me really gets into that and I really do want that art."
But she wants the Carnegie art shows to avoid the tag of being elitist. She wants the Carnegie exhibitions to provide a wide focus appealing to a range of art lovers with varying degrees of sophistication.
Gallery Director Bill Seitz here is seconding Brass's call for a full spectrum of exhibition programming
In constructing a season, Seitz says he strives to present a panorama of artistic expression.
"I'm always looking at ways to bring in something that may have been missing from the program," he said. "I'm always going to get plenty of painters...plenty of sculptors. But right now, I'm trying to get focused on jewelry makers."
Seitz also is trying to move outside traditional art forms for the Carnegie such as the exhibition "The Art of Food," just presented in March. For that show, he invited Greater Cincinnati culinary experts to provide the recipes from which artists created food sculpture and other constructions.
"I've even thought about doing hairdressers," Seitz said, "and including other professionals who are in a creative arena that aren't traditionally put into a gallery setting."
Katie Brass wants to maintain Carnegie arts programs for children, too.
"We still run our after-school programs," she said. "We still partner with Covington Independent Schools (the Covington School District). The schools have 3600 kids and only three art/humanities teachers. We work with them to supplement their art curriculum.
"Those are the programs that are important to us. Eighty-six percent of the kids are at or below the poverty level."
Turning to the Carnegie's theater presentations, Brass also is in the process of developing a new financial approach to keep the Budig Theatre from operating at a loss.
The renovated Budig Theatre initially had a primary tenant in Jersey Productions. The troupe presented seasons at the theater in 2006-2007.
"Jersey was a renter," Brass said. "We had no contract with them. They were not our in-house production company."
Brass said Jersey, since departed and now performing at the Aronoff Center in Cincinnati, did provide much needed programming for the theater. However, Brass said the rental arrangement didn't enable the Carnegie to "make money off of Jersey."
To make the theater profitable, Brass has formed a new cost-sharing plan. She wants the Carnegie "to focus on collaboration. Will we produce stuff ourselves? Absolutely. But only if we have a partner."
Brass explains how collaboration acts as an insurance policy against deficit spending in the theater.
Next year, the Carnegie theater budget will be about $330,000 but only $40,000 of the cost is recovered through sponsorships. The rest of the money is dependent on highly unpredictable ticket sales. The vagaries of box office receipts have caused Brass to circle the wagons around the Carnegie checkbook. "There's too much arts-visual and performing arts-in this region," she said. "We are too small. We can't do it ourselves and we realize that.
"So, in December, we did 'Jesus Christ Superstar' in collaboration with Northern Kentucky University's Commonwealth Theatre. Before that, we did 'The Mousetrap' with New Edgecliff Theatre.
"What that does is it saves on costs. It minimizes the risk."
Brass said the collaboration with NKU's theater was a success. After we paid all of our expenses, we put $21,000 in the bank."
The partnership is so mutually beneficial that Carnegie and NKU will continue it next year.
"When we announce stuff for next year, we already have our partnership with NKU for one of the three shows we are planning," Brass said. "Each of the three shows has a different partner."
"We can build on their audiences and bring in more people. The collaboration will build on the strength of the theater that is only in its infancy stage. It's a baby still; it needs to grow."
Arts organizations that do not have venues in which they can regularly perform will fill out next season's shows. These organizations will include high schools.
"Nowadays, a lot of schools get rid of the arts," Brass said. "They have these dynamic drama programs and don't have a venue. They need our venue to rehearse and to have their shows."
With this new financial platform, Brass said the Carnegie is saying, "You know what? This is what we can do on our own and really show the community how smart we are with our money and how smart we are with our collaboration.'
"Organizations always say 'collaborate, collaborate,' but they never do. It's just a word that gets thrown out. But that is what the Carnegie does."
Backing up the efficiencies Brass is introducing, the Carnegie does have a small financial reserve. Money remaining from the Budig Theatre renovation came to $460,000. The left-over money has been put in an interest-bearing account from which only 5 percent can be drawn off for spending per year.
But when she took the directorship, Brass also found that the Carnegie was continuously paying interest on a line-of-credit debt amounting to $190,000.
"It was just like having $190,000 credit card," she said.
Brass recommended that the debt be paid off. The balance of the money from the renovation remained in the account "in case we hit tough times with the economy.
"The $190,000 we took from the account also will be paid back," Brass said. "So now, the Carnegie is debt-free for the first time in its history I would imagine.
"We're doing good right now."
Meanwhile, just a few blocks southwest of the Carnegie Center, Natalie Bowers is setting a new course for the Arts District. The City of Covington-funded Arts District is designed not only to buttress the arts in Covington in particular but to enhance the Northern Kentucky city's economic prowess generally.
Covington's economic development includes real estate improvement and efforts to attract arts and technology related small businesses to the arts district.
The center of activity for the Arts District is housed at the Artisans Enterprise Center (AEC), 25 W. Seventh St., Covington. The renovated space, a former bingo hall and Sears store, is home to Art District exhibitions, contains a conference room for arts activities, and has an arts education classroom.
While the Arts District supports all the arts throughout Covington, there is an actual, defined geographic zone that Covington's "Economic Development Department created," said Bowers. "It was the result of the city's assessment of how to begin the project of welcoming or embracing the arts here."
The district is bound loosely by 8th Street to the south, Greenup Street to the East, 5th Street to the North and Johnson Street to the West, and bisected by Pike Street.
The AEC, developed as a result of a $450,000 renovation grant from the Commonwealth of Kentucky's General Assembly, also is located within the Arts District.
Bowers said the establishment of an arts district both conceptually and figuratively "is a common model used to promote the arts in many cities."
Covington looked to its sister city Paducah, KY's arts district for inspiration.
"If you get the 'creatives' in, that creates momentum," Bowers said. "They attract further interest and actually generate taxable income for the city."
"Then, you get the dual-incomes-no kids couples, the visionaries and the fixer-uppers. They're all buying into a community that celebrates creativity."
The Arts District concept in Covington is comparatively new. It was developed in 2003-2004 by Jay Fossett, Covington City Manager and Kathie Hickey, Renaissance Manager for Covington (development).
But Fossett and Hickey, having other responsibilities in Covington's government, didn't run the Arts District.
"What they did was hire Kathie's administrative assistant Mary Lyons to be the Arts District Manager," Bowers said.
However, finding money to run the fledgling program is a challenge.
"There was not private funding," Bowers said. "In fact, there was no real budget allocation for an arts district. What they did successfully was utilize the city's existing development budget and built what they could out of it initially."
Prior to Bowers' arrival, the AEC was having what might be called grassroots shows from hobbyists and members of the Tri-State Photographic Society.
"I'm taking a different path," Bowers said. "I don't want to say 'raise the bar' because that assumes the community stuff was less than... What I'm trying to do here is use the AEC to celebrate art.
"You really have to engage people who have dedicated themselves to art and reached a more professional level."
To attract accomplished artists to the AEC, Bowers is establishing a jury committee that has a vested connection with Covington, experience in the arts and/or has networking that would bring community support.
"The plan is, for the first year, the jury members get curatorial rights," Bowers said. "Each member will take a month and make his or her own exhibition."
Furthermore, Bowers plans a general call to artists in Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati to submit applications to exhibit at the AEC in 2010.
Despite Bowers' aggressive programming and projects, she doesn't want the Covington art galleries or other arts-related businesses to feel that the AEC is in any way competing with them.
To allay such competitive fears, Bowers is planning collaborations between the AEC and other Covington galleries to help them.
"This month, Sandra Small is exhibiting 'Narrative Figuration,' an exhibition that features, among others, artist, teacher and curator Rob Anderson. Anderson is currently the curator of AEC's April exhibition, 'Multiple Strategies,' that showcases the work of eight Miami University students from his advanced drawing class that Anderson. She's getting a whole new audience to tap into for her business."
Bowers said she intends to book educators, politicians, potential donors and, not to mention, a variety of artists that the gallery owners may like well enough "to pinch" for showings, she laughs.
"The galleries...should be a part of that. It's common sense."
Bowers said the result of bringing into the AEC and the Arts District an array of people associated with the arts will be a stream of fresh ideas and opportunities galleries may want to appropriate.
In further support of the Covington art galleries, Bowers said, "One of the projects the Arts District supports is a First Fridays Covington Gallery Hop, a monthly event set aside to encourage people to visit a series of galleries and their shows in one evening.
"We administrate the gallery hop's organization," Bowers said. "We create the map (of gallery hop locales), arrange the listing of participants, and host an opening at the AEC to kick things off.
"We usually secure a sponsor that funds the advertising, food and wine for the evening."
Looking ahead, Bowers said, "By the end of this year, we will have a schedule of events that people can depend on. We can bring that to a wider audience.
"We're still building a framework. We're still at the beginning."
Bowers said when one considers that Covington is a comparatively small city with a population of 43,000 and a median income of $25,000, it has done a lot with what it has in regard to development.
"It's absolutely inspirational," Bowers said.
Galleries mentioned in this story:
The Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center, 1028 Scott Blvd, Covington, Ky. Hours:10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, noon-3 p.m. Saturdays, closed Sundays. Current exhibition: 'Different Directions' April 3-June 26, 2009; 859 957 1931.
Artisans Enterprise Center, Covington Arts District, 25 W. Seventh Street. Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays. Current exhibition: 'Multiple Strategies' through May 21; 859 292 2322. Open reception Friday, April 3, 6-10pm.
Sandra Small Gallery, 124 W. Pike St., Covington, Ky. Hours: 3-8 p.m. Thursdays, 1-5 p.m. Fridays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays. Current exhibition: 'Narrative Figuration' through May 1. 859 291 2345.
