Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 26, 1993 TAG: 9309250059
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The college has kept that directive close to heart.
"Part of being what a college can be in a community entails more than just focusing on teaching traditional disciplines," said Bruce Partin, chairman of the Roanoke College fine-arts department. "It is also being a resource for the community. One of the ways we can is through the arts."
Roanoke College is not alone in its support of the arts. Other small, private, liberal arts colleges in the Roanoke Valley region have done the same, supporting arts endeavors through budget line items, endowment funds or simply knocking on a lot of doors.
And the support has remained steady over the past decade, perhaps because the institutions have relied less on outside support than on their own resources.
\ Roanoke College's cultural outreach is extensive. At its core is Olin Hall.
The 70,000-square-foot facility (a $2 million, 28,000-square-foot addition was built in 1985) pulls visual arts, music and theater under one roof - a rarity for an institution the size of Roanoke College.
Beyond academic programs, the college has been generous in its offerings at Olin Hall.
"To my knowledge, there is no other facility for community outreach for the arts in the Roanoke Valley," said James Fabien, Olin Hall administrator.
A performing arts series brings artists with national and international reputation to Olin Hall's 404-seat auditorium. Past featured artists have included jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, The Acting Company of New York and The Joffrey Ballet.
The college also is home of the Kandinsky Trio, one of the foremost chamber ensembles in the Southeast. The trio members are all tenured Roanoke College faculty.
The Olin Hall galleries, approved by the Smithsonian and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, offer an average of 16 exhibits a year, one or two of national importance, says Linda Atkinson, gallery director.
One of the most recent is a showing of three internationally acclaimed sculptors - Louise Nevelson, Siah Armanjani and Alice Aycock - in Olin Hall's Smoyer Gallery. One of each of the artists' works - two owned by the college and one on loan - are on display on campus grounds.
Other art programs include a juried showing every two years of works of regional artists, giving artists within a 150-mile scope a chance to test their mettle.
A lot of work goes into filling gallery space, Atkinson said. Though her job is part-time, Atkinson devotes full-time hours to gallery operations.
"I write to schools, get on the phone, really try to get the word out that we function as a community resource," Atkinson said.
Olin Hall serves as a base for organizations such as the Roanoke Valley Chamber Music Society and Opera Roanoke. The organizations rent space from the college for stage performances and touring artists.
Other community outreach includes a preparatory division of music, where individuals age 5 to adult receive music instruction. The division also features a children's choir (scheduled to perform in December at the Holiday Choral Festival at Walt Disney World), flute choir and dance program for individuals age 5-17.
The offerings are all college-supported, some through endowments, some through an occasional grant.
The college has three endowments that support Olin Hall and performing arts. The Kandinsky Trio receives several mini-grants, offsetting support from the college operating fund and allowing the college to put money into other areas of fine arts.
In the past five years, funding has been fairly steady, Fabien said.
"We're doing more with the same amount of money, he said. "It takes its toll on the staff, but that's pretty much true in most art organizations. A good bit of it is commitment to the arts."
And the college can be a bit freer in its offerings, unlike a civic center or other facility that relies on revenue to sustain operations.
"We're not here to generate revenue," Partin said. "We're here to let people see art."
\ Hollins College President Maggie O'Brien sifted through a small stack of unframed art one afternoon last month. She held up two paintings by realist artists Jack Beal and Sondra Freckleton, marveling at their semblance of texture and touch.
The paintings were given to the college by Beal and Freckleton following their semester this spring as Hollins' first true artists-in-residence, O'Brien said.
When one art faculty member went on sabbatical this past spring semester, the college bucked its tradition of seeking someone as a leave replacement. Instead, it sought Freckleton and Beal.
"We sort of leaped at the opportunity to have people of their stature here," said Bob Sulkin, chairman of the Hollins art department.
Beal taught a course on drawing and painting; Freckleton, one on watercolor. Their presence not only enhanced the college's art offerings academically but the college's outreach to the community, Sulkin said.
The couple made themselves very available, speaking in schools and giving lectures, Sulkin said. They brought to the valley, art of outstanding reputation, art that students and the community otherwise would have not been able to see, he said.
"It's our niche in the valley - to supplement what is offered elsewhere," Sulkin said.
That carries over into all areas of fine arts - film, music, theater, art. Because Hollins is a woman's college, much of the works featured are those of women.
Doris Dorrie, Germany's top woman film director, was a Fulbright Scholar at Hollins last year and an honored guest at the college's annual German film colloquium. So successful was her visit, that Dorrie has agreed to teach a semester of screenwriting at the college every three years.
The film colloquium was established in 1986 by Klaus Phillips, associate professor of German and film at Hollins. The colloquium, which features a different topic every year, has attracted major film and television personalities, actors and directors as well as dozens of scholars from all over the world, Phillips says.
Funding the colloquium and other film-focused endeavors has been the result of "knocking on a lot of doors," Phillips said.
"It's gotten easier, actually," he said. "We have support from an internal funding source. Also support from a number of academic departments at Hollins."
Support for the college's music offerings comes in part from endowed funds, said Michael Sitton, assistant professor of music.
"We have some endowed funds to support a number of things," Sitton said. "C&P Telephone over the past few years, has given donations to our concert series."
Talmadge Recital Hall provides an acoustical setting for solo and chamber music concerts, which are free and open to the public.
Hollins has a long tradition of music education for pre-college students. The college also offers instruction in piano, organ, harpsichord, carillon, flute, guitar and voice.
This summer, the college - with the Roanoke Valley Music Teachers Association - held its first "Keyboard Festival," a self-supported day camp for young musicians age 9-18.
\ Ferrum College is nestled in surroundings rich with folk heritage. The college draws from that culture in its arts offerings.
From plays depicting Franklin County race relations to its annual Folklife Festival and Christmas concert, Ferrum's offerings are much-rooted in the community.
"We're looking at traditional arts of Western Virginia and trying to present that as it really is, not what someone wants to think or believe that it is," said Roddy Moore, director of the Blue Ridge Institute and Museums, located on the Ferrum campus. "The urban area is as much a part as the rural area."
Ferrum's arts offerings - music, dance, drama, visual art - have grown in the past five years because the college has been able to do more cooperative programs with community organizations, said Jody Brown, who chairs the college's fine arts and religion division.
"That way, we've been able to stretch our dollars a little further," she said. "It's appropriate that we reach out to other organizations in the area and do cooperative things on a day-to-day basis."
Ferrum's art offerings include those directed to the general public and those directed to the campus community, though the two often cross paths.
The college's art gallery showings feature works by students, faculty and regionally and nationally known artists. Two major musical concerts and one dance performance are scheduled each semester. The college drama department does one full-scale production each semester.
"All musical performances and people we bring in from the outside are part of our cultural contribution to the region," Brown said.
Ferrum is home of the Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre. Though financially separate from the college - production expenses and salaries are earned through ticket sales and advertising - it is very much college-supported, Brown said.
The dinner theater was founded by a Ferrum faculty member, R. Rex Stephenson. The theater began as a summer-only operation with the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities with a focus on local historical drama.
The Blue Ridge Institute, though separate from the college's fine-arts division, focuses on folk art of the region. It contains one of only two true folk art museums in the state.
"Ferrum is very unique," Moore said. "I don't know of another campus that really works with rural art as much as we do. And we're very unique in being able to support the college in doing this kind of thing.
"It really brings the college and community together."
The interest in cultural heritage of the region is an extension of the college's history, Moore said.
For all of its 20 years, the Ferrum Folklike Festival has been under Moore's direction. The arts and culture fest has become a partnership of college and community, Moore said.
"The role we have in the community is unique," he said. "We've been so lucky to have an administration and board who believe the preservation of folk arts is so important."
by CNB