Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 1, 1995 TAG: 9502010031
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Judy Clark had no sooner hung out her shingle as an arts consultant than it started looking wildly appropriate - like crisis counseling in the wake of a disaster. Gov. George Allen's proposed budget, which slices state appropriations for the arts, has left many in the art world wondering which way to turn.
Clark's new business, Arts Counsel, can help, she believes.
Though she didn't plan it this way.
Really.
"No, no," said Clark, alarmed at the suggestion. "I'm as distressed as everyone else" about the governor's budget.
In fact, the former opera director's plan to open her own business were in the works long before Allen dropped his budget bombshell, she said.
Indeed, Clark has strong opinions about that budget.
"I've never heard anyone complaining about the incredibly high rate of Virginia's taxes," she said, referring to the governor's plan to cut taxes as he cuts expenditures. "It makes me wonder if this can be a smoke screen for something else. ... Many folks are very uncomfortable with creativity. Very uncomfortable."
But to cut funding for the arts is to ignore what the arts do for us, Clark said.
"They are civilizing, humanizing, influences that are not peripheral" to our lives.
In any event, Clark - who left her last job as executive director of Opera Roanoke in July, citing fatigue - brings decades of experience to her new consulting role. Arts Counsel will help arts organizations take a penetrating look at their own operations, and also hone their mission statements razor sharp.
Arts consulting isn't a new idea. It isn't even new to Roanoke, though Clark is currently the only arts consultant who has an office here: Consultant Ellen Blassingham last year analyzed the operations at Clark's own Opera Roanoke, which led the opera to redefine some office roles and titles and streamline staff.
"She left us with a 28-page document that analyzed the organization from top to bottom," Clark recalled.
Clark herself has worked variously as a teacher and manager in the arts. A former arts administrator at Roanoke College, she served as executive director of the opera here from 1989-94 .
It was a period in which the opera grew from a volunteer to a professional organization, while simultaneously building a reserve fund larger than any other opera of its size, Clark said.
Tyler Pugh, who was president of the opera's board during Clark's tenure as executive director, believes her qualifications for her new job are strong. He credited Clark with steering Opera Roanoke from amateur to professional status.
"Judy had excellent experience in the arts," said Pugh. "She was the first executive director [of Opera Roanoke] and literally had the task of making that transition [to professional] occur, and did so effectively, and almost single-handedly."
Clark said, "I know what a lot of these people are doing" in arts organizations, because she has done the same things herself. "I have seen a lot of things that did not work. I have seen some things that definitely did. I have lived long enough, I hope, to help some people."
Clark will work with individual artists as well as arts organizations, she said, discussing career development, career choice and marketing, as well as organizing group discussions on issues of their choice.
According to Clark's business license, she opened for business in January. In fact she has no customers yet, and still was printing up promotional materials last week.
Eventually, Clark hopes to offer a variety of services to increasingly nervous and financially challenged arts organizations - including a general analysis of company operations and in-depth looks at long-range planning, staffing, finances and fund-raising, as well as the organization's artistic mission.
The last, Clark believes, is especially important - a spring from which other good things can flow.
"I believe that fund-raising is a result of everything else that's happening in your organization," she said. "It's a result of effective case-making. You have to be crystal clear about what it is you're trying to do, and why. ... I am no professional fund-raiser. But I believe, more now than I ever have, that good fund-raising is a result of what you're doing."
Whatever the need for her services may be locally, Clark said she expects much of her work to come from outside Roanoke.
"If I'm able to be of use locally, I would love to be," Clark said - but laughed that one definition of a consultant is "someone who lives at least 50 miles away."
by CNB