culture

With Arts Central's Shutdown, What's Next For Central Oregon's Arts Leadership?

By April Baer (OPB)
Bend, Oregon Aug. 25, 2016 3:15 p.m.

A forty year tradition of arts education and advocacy has run aground in Bend.

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Bend's storied roundabout art installations are one of many projects Arts Central helped birth over the years. This work is "Cogs", by Dave Fox.

Bend's storied roundabout art installations are one of many projects Arts Central helped birth over the years. This work is "Cogs", by Dave Fox.

April Baer / OPB

Arts Central, which brought art education, advocacy and more to thousands of central Oregon residents, announced on Aug. 19 it was closing all operations, including the popular classes at Art Station.

The demise of Arts Central was personal for Kelly Cannon-Miller, head of the Deschutes County Historical Society.

“I learned I could draw more than stick figures because of Art Station,” she said. A friend bought her an Art Station class as a birthday present.

“I was sure I couldn’t draw a thing,” Cannon-Miller said, but “it was so empowering to realize, ‘I can look at that and figure out how to sketch that.’”

Beyond the personal loss, Cannon-Miller said she was deeply concerned as a non-profit administrator about what happened.

Arts Central’s road has been rocky since spring,

when the board quarreled with founding executive director Cate O’Hagan.

O’Hagan ultimately resigned.

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It appears the board was not able to raise funds for a fresh start. Arts Central no longer exists, and larger questions remain about who is leading central Oregon’s cultural agenda.

Who Will Fill The Void?

The region's business hub may be fun in the great outdoors, but its booming population definitely has a taste for art. On any given weekend you can go to music festivals, visit galleries, take in readings, and, in doing so, drive past any number of public art projects.

But the scene is narrowly focused on events. There's little public support to bolster what ticket sales won't cover: creating new art and the next generation of artists.

Isabelle Senger's experience is pretty typical. She moved to Bend from Los Angeles and formed High Desert Chamber Music.

"We started with a very small three-concert series in '08-'09 season," Senger said. "We've grown into our ninth season presenting seven major events."

Senger knew the nonprofit life wouldn't be easy, but she had a passion for getting music in front of people. The price she pays is ensuring every hour of her time supports day-to-day operations.

"It's the driving factor of every day," she said.

High Desert Chamber Music has found ways to do school outreach, but Senger said it's challenging.

Operating support is hard to come by. Bend is in year two of a cultural tourism grant for arts and culture, but funding has so far been limited to groups who present bankable tourist draws.

The High Desert Museum has taken on some arts programming, but the state arts commission recently ended funding, effectively taking one of the region's biggest cultural players out of the arts game. The Museum still receives state funding for cultural activities, and can apply for funding for arts projects on a case by case basis.

Bend's Tower Theater is a locus of arts and cultural activity, with roughly 200 days in use per year, according to Tower director Ray Solley.

Bend's Tower Theater is a locus of arts and cultural activity, with roughly 200 days in use per year, according to Tower director Ray Solley.

April Baer / OPB

Ray Solley directs the Tower Theater. As Bend’s main stage, the Tower interacts with dozens of arts groups.

“The strength of central Oregon is the fact it is diverse, that it is personal, that it is individual,” Solley said. “There are many people in the arts and culture world, who moved here from bigger cities — I for one.”

Solley said people who run arts groups in Bend tend to hold a more critical view of arts bureaucracies. He suggests the type of person most likely to gravitate toward Bend would “look at larger structures and say, ‘Those are the people who TALK about doing something. I moved to central Oregon because I actually wanted to DO something.’”

Solley said he doesn’t think the region would benefit by some entity taking up the advocacy mantle.

But some central Oregon players are interested in discussing the future. One of O’Hagan’s initiatives late in her Arts Central tenure was the formation of an Arts and Culture Alliance. Kevin Barclay, deputy director at the Deschutes Public Library, now chairs the group.

At a Tuesday afternoon meeting, Barclay said members shared their grief about Arts Central’s demise, and mulled over what the Alliance could do to prevent other groups from going under.

“One of the theoretical things I think about,” Barclay said, is a comparison with Bend’s popular Parks and Recreation District.

“If you imagine the way arts and culture is right now, there’d be a group running the baseball fields, a group running the soccer fields, a group running the dog park, another group running the ice skating rink — all these diverse groups with their own boards and their own project coordinators and administrators. That’s where we are as far as arts and culture right now.”

On the upside, Barclay said there’s clearly high interest in arts and arts education. He said it’s time to connect the dots.

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