Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 19, 1992 TAG: 9201170257
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jeff DeBell
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
NEA AIMS TO HELP MUSEUM STRENGTHEN, NOT BAIL OUT
The Roanoke Museum of Fine Arts has begun a painstaking examination of its management system. The idea is to find ways of improving the system and to develop a long-range plan for putting the improvements into place.The process is being carried out under the National Endowment for the Arts "advancement program" for arts organizations and institutions. The museum is one of 46 participants in the so-called technical assistance phase of this year's program.
Each is paired with an arts management consultant - at NEA expense - who works intimately with the institution as it analyzes itself and prepares the long-range plan. Working with the Roanoke museum is Howard Klein, retired head of the arts division of the Rockefeller Foundation.
Klein said participants in the program are selected not because they are in trouble, but because of their willingness to critically analyze themselves and to consider organizational alternatives.
"Their artistic product is good," Klein said. "This has to do with strengthening, not bailing out."
When the technical-assistance phase is satisfactorily completed, the museum and other participants will be eligible to apply to the NEA for matching grants to help pay for implementation of improvements under phase two of the advancement program.
"We're buying into this whether we get the grant or not," said Walter Dixon, head of the museum's advancement committee and former president of its board of trustees.
The museum has tried to draft and implement long-range plans on its own in recent years, but they have had to take a back seat to the more immediate concerns of fiscal survival.
"We've had to bob and weave and fight off the alligators," Dixon said.
\ Benjamin Poindexter of Roanoke will receive the inaugural Marionette Sprauve Memorial Music Scholarship.
Poindexter, a 23-year-old percussionist, is a sophomore music major at Morehead State University in Morehead, Ky. He plans to be a music educator.
The scholarship winner is the son of Carrie Dulin of Roanoke. He attended Patrick Henry High School and is an alumnus of the Crossmen Drum and Bugle Corps.
The scholarship is awarded by Friends of the Roanoke Symphony, an orchestra support group in the Roanoke Valley's minority community. The late Marionette Shaw Sprauve was founding president of the organization.
\ The search for a new executive director for The Arts Council of the Blue Ridge has been narrowed to five candidates from a field of about 50.
Serious interviewing is about to begin, according to council president Sally Rugaber. The council would like to have someone in place next month.
The new executive director will succeed Susan Cole Urano, who resigned late last year to take a position in Ohio.
\ Response to this newspaper's new ArtSpace feature has been a bit sluggish. We're frankly surprised, since we've rarely met anyone in the arts without (1) strong opinions and (2) an eagerness to express them.
ArtSpace is a reader forum devoted to art. It runs on Sundays, roughly every other week. It's open to everyone from artists to just plain art lovers, and they can write about anything they want. All we ask is that the column be accessible, free of jargon and reasonably literate. We'll pay $50 for every piece we use. Further details are available at 981-3353.
This strikes us as a pretty good opportunity, especially for artists, who are hard to please when it comes to press coverage. They never think there's enough, and they often don't like what there is.
If they don't take advantage of ArtSpace, such complaints will be a whole lot less credible.