FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — Some senior art students from St. John’s Catholic Prep stared intently at a mural of swooping green and purple mountains in the halls of the Mental Health Association of Frederick County.

Paint brushes in hand, they expanded the landscape as they traced over old ridge lines with new ones. Some chatted with one another; some concentrated silently.

Each student’s calculated stroke brought the larger scene into focus: a mountainous region with coolly colored expanses basked in warm orange-yellow sunlight.

The hallways and mural lines all lead to a sun in the middle corridor, eclipsed by a majestically posed bird, standing on a tree branch with its beak held high.

The bird was the idea and creation of St. John’s senior Juliana Workman, who stood a few feet away, painting a mountain.

Workman said the bird embodies someone with confidence who has grown out of their mental struggles.

“The fact that it’s against the sun and being highlighted by the sun, it’s absorbing all the things that are positive,” Workman said. “It’s sitting on a branch, so it’s high above the rest of the mountains. When you reach a point where you finally overcome your mental struggles, that’s how it should feel.”

Workman’s theme is emblematic of the students’ mural as a whole.

It was requested by Rebecca Layman, director of marketing and development for MHA, to bring life to MHA’s recently renovated counseling wing and its neutral, beige walls.

She had recently provided a tour of the wing to St. John’s counselors and thought that students would be the perfect artists to spruce the place up.

“We wanted it to be a warm, friendly, comforting space for our clients who come in and use our services,” Layman said. “I’ve always loved art and felt like art speaks to so many people, especially in healing.”

St. John’s art teacher and independent artist Bernadette Miller answered Layman’s call. After speaking with Layman, Miller plotted out the landscape now adorning the walls with input from her senior art students.

Miller and her class began painting the mural in early March — periodically returning to it throughout the month, adding color and contours.

“It’s a great collaborative effort,” Miller said. “The school loves for us to be able to go out in the community and put our mark in different ways. I really feel like the students, that’s where they build memories. That’s where we kind of bond as a community.”

Workman and her classmates explained how they hoped their artwork would soothe those who walk MHA’s halls and shared how their relationship with art affects their own mental health.

Workman hopes to become an animator for children’s TV shows.

Though not everyone plans to pursue art education after they graduate this spring, seniors Adrianna Cortes and Annabelle Browning predicted art would continue to serve a special role in their lives

“I’ve always loved art,” Browning said. “It’s kind of been my thing even as a young kid. I’ve always just went and painted if I was having a bad day.

“When I’m older, I want to be a school counselor. So, I’m hoping maybe I can make my own pieces and hang them up in my room.”

The act of holding a paint brush is freeing to Browning. There are no rules when she has a paint brush in hand and she feels a sense of control.

To Cortes, art similarly serves as a stress reliever.

Both students relished the idea that their contributions to the mural and the individual watercolor paintings they made would be seen by community members for years to come.

“I never would have thought that my art would impact other people’s lives,” she said.

Browning added, “It’s going to help someone, whether we know it or not. It’s just kind of nice to know that a painting can make someone smile, even if it’s not for a whole day. But just the fact that someone smiled for a second … makes me feel good.”

Layman hopes clients will internalize the calmness of the alpine scenery and think about how it relates to their own path toward counseling and support.

“We know that not everybody comes and leaves and feels hopeful, but perhaps it’s the beginning of the healing process for them,” Layman said. “The clouds will dissipate a little bit, and I know that it’s not a cure or a fix, but it’s the start.”

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Visual stimulation will be plentiful next weekend at the free Mission Fed ArtWalk.

The 39th annual edition of the festival is expected to attract more than 100,000 attendees to peruse the creations of more than 250 artists. The media include sculpture, glass, photography, fine jewelry, woodwork and paintings, from acrylics to watercolors.

Set in the cuisine-happy neighborhood of Little Italy, art-lovers will have many options if they’re hungry or thirsty. They can also sample sonic treats from the four music stages that dot the festival. More than 30 acts will perform throughout the weekend, including six-string wizard Robin Henkel and 2023 San Diego Music Award Best New Artist nominee Ash Easton.

“Diving Girl” by photographer Carlos Vargas, one of eight featured artists at the 2023 ArtWalk San Diego April 29-30 in Little Italy.

(Courtesy of Carlos Vargas)

“There’s so much to be excited about this year,” said Curt Brooker, director of ArtWalk San Diego, which also oversees similar festivals in Carlsbad and Liberty Station. “Mission Fed ArtWalk gets better every year. The caliber of the artwork is outstanding.”

For families, there is the KidsWalk area as well as interactive art experiences that everyone can participate in. Among those activities are adding colorful strokes to a mural of Italian scenes and learning the unusual technique of “tape painting” to contribute to Sarah Stieber’s collaborative canvas.

At Piazza della Famiglia, the plaza in the heart of Little Italy, a collection of bicycles and bike accessories designed by local artists will be displayed. Donated by San Diego’s Electra Bicycle Company, they are part of the Charity Art Auction that benefits ArtReach, ArtWalk’s nonprofit partner.

ArtReach aims to increase equity in visual arts education in schools throughout San Diego County.

“Consumed by Chaos” by Jen Duran, one of eight featured artists at the 2023 ArtWalk San Diego April 29-30 in Little Italy.

(Courtesy of Jen Duran)

In January, Mission Fed ArtWalk announced the eight featured artists for its 2023 edition.

“With so much excellence represented at the festival, choosing just eight featured artists was not easy,” said ArtWalk director Brooker. “These represent some of the best and brightest.”

Here are the eight featured artists this year.

“Dancing in Colors” by Mieko Anekawa, one of eight featured artists at the 2023 ArtWalk San Diego April 29-30 in Little Italy.

(Courtesy of Mieko Anekawa)

Mieko Anekawa — An acrylic, impressionist painter, Anekawa has lived in Japan, New York and now La Jolla. She combines “naturalism and emotion into an organic collaboration.”

Nobe Babayan — A Los Angeles-based bronze sculpture artist (born and raised in Armenia), Babayan’s pieces are contemporary “with a side of whimsy.”

“Spring Song” by bronze artist Nobe Babayan, one of eight featured artists at the 2023 ArtWalk San Diego April 29-30 in Little Italy.

(Courtesy of Nobe Babayan)

Jen Duran — This San Diego abstract-realist painter uses watercolor, acrylics, and inks in hopes to “evoke emotions” from the viewer.

Mac Hillenbrand — A native San Diegan, now residing in Carlsbad, Hillenbrand applies the 17^th century art of marquetry to his woodworking.

Veronica Leiton — An abstract-surrealist artist who paints in oil on canvas, Leiton is a native Chilean and longtime resident of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Melissa Marquardt — This Encinitas-based mixed-media artist specializes in abstract waterscapes and landscapes, inspired by California’s coast and estuaries.

Nic McGuire — Santa Barbara-born and Encinitas-raised, McGuire now lives in San Diego, creating glass sculpture.

Carlos Vargas — A Palm Springs resident, Vargas was born and raised in Colombia. His photography is inspired by the Caribbean’s “dazzling colors.”

The three people interviewed for this story — McGuire, Hillenbrand and Leiton — are experts in different mediums. Each is excited to be among Mission Fed ArtWalk’s 2023 featured artists.

“This title validates that the artists chosen are on the right path with their personal journey through art,” glass sculptor McGuire said.

“It’s a big morale booster …. There’s a huge marketing benefit to being selected. ArtWalk promotes all their featured artists on the website, social media and local news stations to create a buzz around your artwork. It also makes your booth a designated stop as attendees roam around the festival. It is a true honor,” he said.

Art glass by Nic McGuire, one of eight featured artists at the 2023 ArtWalk San Diego April 29-30 in Little Italy.

(Courtesy of Nic McGuire)

McGuire needed many arduous years to acquire the skills — and power tools — that enable him to make his glass-and-steel creations. He also had to learn to facilitate metal so that his materials come together properly.

“I make glass sculptures that intrigue and fascinate the senses,” he said. “Brilliant, rich colors and unique handmade textures have a graceful movement in the forms. My intentions are in symbiotic harmony with the process-based nature of this exotic material …. Glass is a symbol for the fragility of life.”

Woodworking artist Hillenbrand applies pioneering techniques on the ancient art of marquetry, which is basically inlaying patterns on variously colored woods. Most marquetry artisans are in the furniture world, he said.

“I wanted to make my own artwork and make a small business of that,” said Hillenbrand, who uses computer-aided design software in his art. “I’m going beyond the traditional — like breaking the rules of the sensei to start my own dojo.

“I create two-dimensional pieces, often using wood grain, to express oceanic textures. I’m drawing from years and years of surfing and spending time in the ocean to try to understand how breaking waves affect the dynamic that makes the ocean so enthralling.”

Annie Scarber formed a stark memory during her first year in the Salt Lake Valley.

She was about 6 years old when she pointed her finger at a gray cloud concentrating under the mountains. She hadn’t seen anything like that in her native Arizona.

That’s when her father introduced her to a word that would prevail in her vocabulary for the next years of her life:

Inversion.

“When I first learned about that,” Scarber said. “[I thought] ew, that’s kind of gross, it’s like a soup bowl.”

Her family then lived in a student housing unit close to the University of Utah in east Salt Lake City. But for the past seven years, the 16-year-old’s home has been in West Valley City, and that cloud is no longer at a distance, it’s part of her daily life.

Like her, many other teenagers who grew up on the Salt Lake Valley’s west side have heard about the bad air. Though not all of her Granger High School peers take a formal course to better understand the environment they live in, an interschool program helps them explore both that cloud’s cause and potential solutions to mitigate it.

All of this, through art.

Utah State University organizes a competition among young students to create public service announcements about the pollution that pervades the valley.

USU professors Edwin Stafford and Roslynn McCann started the competition in 2015. They conjured up the idea after attending a Cache Clean Air Consortium summit in which Stafford said they noticed gaps surrounding knowledge about area air pollution.

“There is very little education going out to high schoolers,” Stafford said. “Most students tell us that the contest is the only formal education they receive about Utah’s air pollution.”

The Wasatch Front and Cache County are familiar with poor air. Both areas are known for exceeding National Ambient Air Quality Standards in the winter. But while collecting data from the air quality competition, Stafford discovered some students’ answers suggested that “they’re getting kind of a haphazard understanding of air pollution.”

Participants got creative and incorporated diverse art mediums to send messages encouraging Utahns to do their part to stop contributing to the valley’s inversions.

Scarber used alcohol markers to draw a winning entry. Her piece portrays a car with a body of its own and a passenger holding a key. Swirls blended with words in cursive surround it with keywords that, in her view, represent the state’s air — gross, disgusting, death and lung cancer.

“I kind of felt a little bit anxious because of, this is going to sound dramatic, the impending doom of our planet,” she said. “It’s such a beautiful planet, but we’re destroying it. It’s very sad.”

Saige Miller, KUER

/

Alixel Cabrera, The Salt Lake Tribune

Environmental education is ‘too divisive’ for some parents

Stafford gave an air quality and marketing presentation to art students at Granger High this year. Alysson Galarza, an art teacher at the school, noticed the same education gap Stafford found.

She said some of her students were aware of the bad air in Utah and especially the Salt Lake Valley’s west side. Others, she said, didn’t know why they couldn’t see the mountains in the winter.

“Which is surprising to me,” Galarza said, “that a child would be unfamiliar with that at the high school level.”

For her, it’s “unbelievable” that pollution education isn’t widely taught in Utah schools. But if it’s not in the curriculum, “it’s not something teachers can always get to.” And in some cases, Galarza added, teachers get into trouble for lessons outside of the approved curriculum.

Saige Miller, KUER

/

Alixel Cabrera, The Salt Lake Tribune

Stafford said parents are asked why they believe air quality education isn’t taught in Utah schools.

“They openly say that our state is too conservative,” he said, “and that pollution is just something that we can’t talk about in the schools. It’s too politically divisive.”

The air quality art competition gives students the opportunity to learn about the problem with a creative outlet. Between three classes, Galarza said, the students submitted about 75 pieces to the contest.

She noticed it sparked conversations about how the students could change their behaviors to limit their contribution to pollution. Galarza even pointed out her own culpability.

“My main issue is, actually it’s kind of embarrassing, the drive-thru at Starbucks,” she said. “I can just walk into the coffee shop and buy my coffee. I don’t have to sit in the line of cars and wait.”

Since the project, Galarza said, she has put a stop to the habit. Now, she goes inside to grab her drink of choice.

Stafford said research shows it takes about six minutes to receive orders at the drive-thru. During that time, “you’re breathing the pollution that’s coming out of the tailpipe in front of you.”

The air quality presentations and contests have changed perspectives and behaviors, according to Stafford’s data.

Survey evaluations from previous years found contestants are more likely to act in ways that clean up the air, such as not idling their vehicle or carpooling. And 43% of the respondents believe they have changed the behavior of their peers and family members.

Granger art students back up the research findings. Many said they’re more likely to walk to the places around them, take public transportation to school and encourage their families to go idle-free. They followed up by stating it was the right thing to do to help clean up the air they breathe.

“Sometimes when I tell my parents, ‘Hey, you should turn off your key.’ They kind of laugh at me. They do it but they think it’s funny that I care so much,” Scarber said. “I don’t think it’s funny.”

Saige Miller, KUER

/

Alixel Cabrera, The Salt Lake Tribune

‘It’s always surrounding me’

When creating her artwork, Jade Gonzalez, who is in Galarza’s class, thought of all the damage people do to the Earth. Her piece depicts a woman’s torso slightly emaciated, representing Mother Nature. She wrote a message next to it: “Save her.”

Having lived in West Valley City her whole life, Gonzalez said bad air has become a fact of life for longtime residents. Sometimes it takes her going to other areas to realize how different the air can be.

“Going up to the mountains, because even if it’s still in Utah, you can tell the air just feels different,” she said. “It feels nicer and cleaner. Going to California or Mexico, for example, it just feels a lot fresher.”

Like other students, Gonzalez would like to see solutions such as more commuters using public transit and bikes. But, she believes, that may not be enough unless larger waves of people join those efforts.

“There are just so many small things that you can do, but, honestly, not much of it helps too much unless a lot of people do them,” she said. “There’s just stuff that we could do on a bigger scale that we haven’t done. But it is really nice to see more people not idling their cars or riding to school on their bikes instead of driving.”

For Wyatt Johnson, a junior at Granger, the assignment was about making a clear statement with a familiar image. He drew Uncle Sam, added a gas mask and modified the iconic message to “I want you to stop idling.”

“I hope that it can kind of help the viewers understand that it’s kind of dire, this whole situation,” he said. “We need to get to work now to stop it.”

Though he started thinking about the change he wants to bring to his community whenever he becomes a driver, breathing the west side air at home and at school, he said, and knowing it’s “filthy” is tough.

“It’s literally close to home,” he said. “It’s always surrounding me.”

This story is part of Reaching for Air — a collaboration of The Salt Lake Tribune, KUER and the Brown Institute for Media Innovation — which explores air quality in communities on the Salt Lake Valley’s west side. If you would like to share your story, please complete this survey or leave a voice message at 385-419-2470.

COLUMBIA — Since South Carolina’s only nonprofit art house theater, The Nickelodeon, reopened under new leadership a year ago, it has been building back slowly and filling seats at screenings of “Where the Crawdads Sing” and “Air” and an album launch party for a popular local DJ.

The again-full theater marks progress for an organization that in recent years has struggled through missteps around racial equality and a pandemic that had its viability thrown into question.

The Nickelodeon’s new leaders say they are taking steps to regain the confidence of Columbia area movie-goers whose backing is needed to keep the movies playing. Still, some former employees are skeptical of promises for real change, feeling that the organization never answered publicly for allegations of systemic racism within its walls. 

Starting in 2020, the two-screen cinema at the heart of Columbia’s Main Street entertainment district found itself in the midst of a reckoning, punctuated by a global pandemic and a national movement over racial inequity following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of police.

The Nick stumbled as it tried to adjust to challenges brought by COVID-19. There were blunders as conversations about race held the national stage. Revolving leadership also raised concerns throughout the community about the organization’s health.

The 44-year-old theater, its associated Indie Grits Lab program and the umbrella organization that operates them, Columbia Film Society, faced allegations from former staff that included pay inequity and a work environment hostile to people of color. The Indie Grits Lab director resigned in 2020 as a result. And the Film Society executive director who handled the controversy would later leave the organization in 2021.

Before all this, The Nickelodeon, Indie Grits Lab and an associated film festival that, at its height, drew in 12,000 people, were trumpeted for the ways they were helping to revitalize the downtown core.

In addition to showing films not available at the multiplex, the theater has long billed itself as a cultural touchstone,  hosting a variety of special events from the album launch for one of Columbia’s pre-eminent Black artists, Preach Jacobs, to a speaker series on affordable housing.

The Nick board members spoke openly to Free Times and said they took the racial allegations seriously, but according to former employees, instances of racism continued. An interim director came and went amid controversy, having used a racial slur during a conversation with staff.

Ultimately, The Nick again temporarily closed in February 2022 for what board members at the time called “spring cleaning.” The Nick leadership now says there were problems with some personnel, and the closure and terminations came at the recommendation of its outside human resources firm brought in to review the organization and its employment practices.

“There was just such turmoil at that time,” said Xavier Blake, a former board member who now works in community engagement for the organization. “That made things kind of hard to go forward.”

Yet former employees allege the closure served as another act of inequality as people of color were removed from staff. They saw it as a smokescreen for an organization that had failed to address the issue of racism.

“I find that’s very much where they continue to drop the ball today is not being open enough and truthful enough with the people about what their real intentions are,” said Thaddeus Jones, former director of programming at the theater. “Even how we were dismissed from our positions is shrouded under the guise of spring cleaning, which is just a slap in the face.”

An open letter

The Nick’s first bout of criticism came in an open letter posted to social media, penned by two Black former employees accusing the organization that oversees The Nick of “longstanding issues of institutionalized racism that have for too long been silenced or ignored by the management and staff.”

As government-mandated closures amid the coronavirus pandemic hammered arts organizations across the country, the letter pointed out that most of those who lost their jobs at The Nick belonged to a minority group.

“In the wake of COVID-19, the CFS (Columbia Film Society) went from having a relatively diverse staff of Black, non-Black POC, and genderqueer employees to having (a staff) that was predominantly all white,” the letter said of the staff furloughs that started in March 2020 and gave way to full layoffs that May. “The CFS removed the vast majority of its part-time and full-time Black staff, while keeping its two white directors and one Black manager.”

In addition, the letter spoke of instances where racial slurs and offensive language were used by leadership, as well as pay inequity.

Sumner Bender, a theater teacher who had previously served on the board of Trustus Theatre, came on as the organization’s executive director about nine months ago, long after the letter was published, but she said it has informed her approach to the role.

“We had staff that said this organization isn’t treating people of color the way it should,” Bender said. “It was my duty to make sure I use that information in a way that was valuable and intentional.”

To start, The Nickelodeon has added annual diversity, equity and inclusion training for staff and for its governing board. Earlier, in 2021, the board also gave all full-time staff a 15-percent raise to make wages more competitive on a regional level and bumped up pay for part-time staff serving customers from $10 to $15 per hour.

“The pandemic measurably reevaluated how we do business, especially as a theater,” Blake said. “It brought some things to the forefront that we were not doing correctly.”

Bender and Blake recognize The Nick will have to continue to prove change through action.

In March, the Transgender Awareness Alliance hosted a film screening at the theater.

“They called us up and point-blank asked me, ‘Why should we work with The Nickelodeon?” Blake said. “And I said, sure, we had some missteps in the past. But we’re looking forward to rebuilding that trust.”

The alliance’s executive director M. Greg Green said he had been aware of the issues raised by prior staff, which included an LGBTQ staff member. Green decided to give The Nick a chance to “show up better for the queer community and help build that trust back up.”

“You can do one thing to ruin trust,” Green said. “It takes 10 things to rebuild that trust but it’s about taking steps in right direction.”

Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina also paused its charitable giving to The Nick for one year in 2020 during the pandemic, Bender said. When she came on as executive director, she spoke to the insurance giant about the open letter and the changes she hoped to make at the theater in response. The company asked why it should continue supporting the Nick. 

“I said, ‘Because that letter has given us a foundation to build from, because we can recognize the weaknesses and we can recognize the faults of what came before and do everything we can to use that as education and to move forward,'” Bender said.

“As somebody coming in brand new, I can hope to never have that happen again, and I can do everything in my power and make it not happen again.”

Still, others said the allegations in the open letter were not the only acts of inequality to take place at The Nick.

Problems continue

Shanel Jackson, the theater’s former director of operations and membership, was the only staff member of color allowed to remain after COVID-related furloughs became permanent. That was the case until late 2020 when the organization hired Jones. 

Jackson said she hadn’t always taken the murmurings about racial inequality within the organization to heart until she experienced it firsthand.

Jackson told The Post and Courier in several interviews about an incident that took place after Jones had been hired, in which a White employee had accused Jackson of attacking her. Jackson denies the allegation and said her own account was not taken into consideration. Instead, she felt villainized and said her accuser further retaliated against her.

Jackson also presented the board with an instance when she said a White coworker talked in the office about going on a cruise to Jamaica, and upon seeing Black men on the island, stated she feared them.

Finally, Jackson alleged in a complaint to the board that former Executive Director Anita Floyd passed over an Asian woman for a marketing job, stating it would be difficult to adjust to the woman’s accent. 

“I believed she definitely had taken part and she also encouraged in her silence that it was OK to treat people of color different from their White counterparts,” Jackson said of Floyd.

Floyd said she was not familiar with the complaint against her hiring decision for the marketing position and deferred further comment to the Columbia Film Society, adding that the “organization has moved on and is doing well.”

Ultimately, as The Nick built back its staff, it would again boast a diverse team, with three people of color working full time — Jackson, Jones and Rae Groover, hired to do marketing in early 2021 — and a number of others working part time, serving customers or running projection.

Groover said Floyd touted the organization’s diversity and inclusion efforts during his interview.

An outside firm was hired to hold safe-space training and encourage discussion around these issues.

But Jones and Floyd said they often felt like their ideas and contributions were being dismissed or ignored by management.

Amid all this, Jackson and Floyd’s working relationship would deteriorate after Jackson lodged complaints.

Jackson said she had acted as a whistleblower but instead was punished by having her hours reduced and not being given access to tools needed to do her job. Others on staff told The Post and Courier they could feel the tension and took notice when Jackson wasn’t around as much.

Then, Jackson said, she was fired in mid-2021 after working at The Nick two years. Floyd announced her own departure shortly after, prompting the board to ask Jackson to return to work, needing someone with experience running the theater.

In September 2021, former CEO of Together Women Rise in Greenville, Beth Ellen Holimon, was brought on in an interim role leading the theater. Holimon had a background in diversity, equity and inclusion and said she was proud of the work done while she served in the interim role.

But Holimon left after a number of former Black employees, including Groover and Jackson, said she used a racial slur during an office conversation. 

Groover and Jackson said they had been talking about a post they had seen on social media pertaining to the use of a racial slur. They said Holimon interjected, asking what makes it wrong or not wrong for a person to use the slur, repeating the slur in her question. 

“Last year at The Nickelodeon, during a conversation with a group of colleagues, a Black employee referred to a well-known artist by using a term in a context with which I was not familiar,” Holimon said. “In an effort to better understand the context, I asked the employee to explain the word’s meaning. In doing so, I repeated the word.

“The use of inappropriate or offensive words is unacceptable in any context. I learned from this moment, and continue my anti-racism journey through greater self-awareness, contribution to change, and accountability.”

With her departure, The Nickelodeon was again adrift by early 2022, without an executive director to run it.

“The board was just acting as one in crisis mode for a long time,” Bender said.

An outside HR firm was brought in to conduct an evaluation of the organization and its employees. Board members were told they needed to make a complete change. So on Feb. 28, 2022, The Nick announced it would again temporarily suspend screenings to focus on hiring a new director and to restructure its staffing.

Jackson, Jones and Groover were all terminated. Part time staff members were laid off.

In the former employees’ eyes, The Nickelodeon had once again taken out staff members of color without owning up to it publicly. It would prompt Jones to film a documentary, uploaded to Youtube, about the experience.

Bender said The Nick has offered to screen Jones’ film in its theater when it’s complete. Jones is working to finish the third, and likely final, part of the film. 

Jones said, while the screening offer may seem like a good idea on its face, he thinks a neutral venue would be more appropriate.

“It felt a bit disingenuous, like a way to take control of the narrative rather than fostering a real conversation,” he said.

Building back slowly

The Nick would remain shuttered until April 15, 2022, raising questions in the interim and casting doubt on the organization’s long-term survival after so much instability.

Using a temporary staffing agency recommended by the HR firm, the theater reopened a couple of days a week. The HR firm also chose to bring back just two former part-time employees. Two weeks later, Bender’s hiring was announced. She would start in June.

When Bender stepped into the role, she worked with the staffing agency to bring its employees on permanently and emailed other former part-time staff about reapplying, one of whom responded.

“I want to hire as many people as I can from a diverse background, whether it’s age, race, sexual orientation, any of that, but at the same time, it’s going to take trust from the community for them to believe that this is a place that will respect them,” Bender said.

Today, The Nick is up to about 20 employees, three of those in full-time roles, Bender said.

Much of the work is centered around the theater and putting on events, still far from the vast array of community-centered efforts previously held by the Indie Grits Lab arm of the organization, such as media literacy programs and film boot camps.

Starting out small is intentional on Bender’s part.

“We’re rebuilding,” she said. “If we rush, we’re going to do things wrong…. If we can take our time and be very intentional about it, then we’re going to minimize problems.”

Bender said she is asked often when will the Indie Grits Film Festival return. The society is aiming for a 2024 return.

“Indie Grits will come back,” Bender said. “How and what it will look like, that’s the question mark. It will most likely look a lot different.”

The festival had once put Columbia on the map of the independent film industry, but Bender said it had also become too big for The Nickelodeon to do on its own.

“If we’re trying to make an organization that’s going to last the test of time, we have to understand the parameters in which we work,” Bender said. “We want it to be valuable to Columbia.”

Former Free Times Managing Editor David Clarey contributed to this report.

PORT TOWNSEND — Shelly Leavens is joining the city of Port Townsend as its new communications and marketing manager.

She will begin work May 4.

“Relationships and stories of people and place matter to me and connect this special community together,” said Leavins, the former executive director of the Jefferson County Historical Soceity.

“Now is a great time to join the city team,” she added. “With so many opportunities to communicate on city priorities and engage our community, I’m eager to dive in and ensure we’re all working together to guide our collective future.”

Leavens recently stepped down from her position with the historical society, an organization she led for nearly five years.

Prior to that, she was curator and public events manager for the Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, an Instructor at University of Washington, and an independent contractor focusing on curatorial work, collections, and oral history.

She holds a master’s in museology from University of Washington, focusing on public history interpretation and a bachelor’s in anthropology from Pennsylvania State University.

Her hire “is a significant step forward in improving how the city communicates, engages, and works with our community and partners to make a real difference, according to City Manager John Mauro.

“I’m thrilled to introduce Shelly as our new Communications and Marketing Manager, although she likely doesn’t need an introduction to the community she knows and loves so well,” Mauro said.

“Shelly stood out among a number of really excellent candidates for her deep leadership skills; her clear, approachable, and strategic communications and marketing style and acumen; her collaborative ethos; and her strong commitment to positive change in this community,” Mauro said.

“She brings a wealth of experience to this new role as an artist, storyteller, communicator, and change-maker.”

The role functions as the city’s strategic lead for communications and marketing, providing technical expertise as a conduit between internal teams and external organizations to plan, coordinate, and deliver strategic communications, marketing and engagement with the Port Townsend community and beyond, according to the release.

The city is undertaking a number of high-profile public engagements this year, including decisions concerning the Port Townsend Golf Course, an aquatics center, streets, housing and financial sustainability.

Shelly Leavens says: “Relationships and stories of people and place matter to me and connect this special community together. Now is a great time to join the City team. With so many opportunities to communicate on City priorities and engage our community, I’m eager to dive in and ensure we’re all working together to guide our collective future.”

Nine current open positions can be found at https://cityofpt.applicantpool.com/jobs.

A furry orange armchair, a pair of upcycled jeans, and a legion of prints and pottery donated by YeoPress and the Oberlin Pottery Co-op were among the works of art up for auction at the El Centro Volunteer Initiative Art Gala last Friday. Attendees of the free event, many dressed in the recommended cocktail attire, lined the perimeter of the Root Room, admiring the pieces and placing bids to help fund citizenship applications for Lorain County residents. The annual art auction originated with YeoPress, but in recent years ECVI has taken the reins, putting on the event with the aid of donations from YeoPress and the Pottery Co-op.

“Some of [the donations] are from professors,” College fourth-year and ECVI Co-Leader of Grant Writing and Fundraising Signe Meyer said. “We have some this year from librarians, one from a Dean of Student Life. We had a community member donate the other day. It’s a good mix of people. It is predominantly student art, but we accept art from whoeverʼs interested.”

As the night progressed and the closing of bidding drew near, the energy in the room heightened. Bidders discreetly guarded their desired works to outbid any challengers, and the Mexican banda drew a growing crowd to the dance floor. With its music and food, the gala provided a rare opportunity for Latine students to celebrate their culture alongside Lorain community members.

“Itʼs a fact that thereʼs Latine students in the Conservatory, but there is no band centered on Latinidad or anything like that,” College second-year and ECVI Co-Leader of Grant Writing and Fundraising Angelina Martinez said. “There isnʼt really Spanish music and Spanish bands [at Oberlin]. The reason we brought the banda is because we wanted that type of representation.”

Cultural connection is also a motivation for many of those involved with ECVI.

“Iʼm from Houston, Texas, and the community Iʼm from is all Black and Brown people, so coming [to Oberlin] was a definite culture shock,” Martinez said. “ECVI specifically goes out to a predominantly Latinx community to give citizenship and English classes, so one, [joining] was really important for me because it felt like home, and two, immigration is a personal issue for me and itʼs something that Iʼm really passionate about.”

Lorain’s Latine community has a notable history, with hundreds of men being recruited from Puerto Rico to work in the steel mill in the mid-20th century.

“We want people to be aware of that community, and to be able to have an opportunity to support them and to engage in really important local social justice and community-building work,” Meyer said.

To provide Oberlin students with that opportunity, ECVI works to benefit El Centro de Servicios Sociales.

“El Centro provides so many services, weʼre known as a one-stop organization here in Lorain County with a big reputation,” Executive Director of El Centro de Servicios Sociales Victor Leandry said. “We do English classes, first-homebuyer classes, we do summer camp, ballet classes, we have senior services, legal aid clinics — we do a lot. … Lorain County and Lorain City have the biggest Latino population per capita in Ohio, but we only have one organization thatʼs ours.”

El Centro is the organization for which ECVI is named, though ECVI is entirely student-led. It was students of El Centro’s citizenship test preparation classes whose applications the gala sought to raise funds for. This semester, ECVI-led citizenship classes have been attended by as many as nine participants in one session — a record for the organization.

“This semester, we have the largest number of citizenship students ever,” Meyer said. “Given that every test is $725 just for the application alone, weʼd love to fund at least three if not more, but itʼs super reliant on how many people show up, how much theyʼre willing to pay, how much theyʼre willing to donate to the organization.”

Meyer says they have met the aforementioned goal — out of 136 pieces, all but three were auctioned off, raising enough money to fund four citizenship applications. But regardless of the monetary proceeds from the gala, El Centro values the efforts and con- tributions of ECVI.

“They have organized a great group; they have a group that runs almost like a board of directors,” Leandry said. “Approximately six years ago, they started volunteering at El Centro, doing citizenship classes, [and] educating our immigrant community on how to pass their citizenship test. … They have very good success rates. Most of the people who take the class — in the 90 percent — pass the citizenship test.”

ECVI is not the only avenue through which Oberlin and El Centro have developed a relationship. Professor of Comparative American Studies Gina Pérez recently joined El Centro’s board of directors and has worked closely with the organization and the Lorain Historical Society to create the Latino Lorain History Project.

“We started our project three years ago to collect and capture the history of the Latino community [in Lorain], because it was not captured [anywhere],” Leandry said.

Pérez led students in her class in collecting oral histories from early members of the Latino community in Lorain.

“This year weʼre working on capturing the story of the Latino veterans in Ohio in Lorain to do an exhibit,” Leandry said. “Some of the students are from ECVI, and some are from [Pérez’s] class.”

Turnout at last weekʼs art gala was significantly greater than at the previous art auction. ECVI organizers were encouraged by the show of Oberlin support for El Centro’s cause.

“Itʼs refreshing to see, especially in todayʼs political environment, that people care about immigration issues,” Martinez said.

Perhaps ECVI’s success in marketing the art gala can be attributed in part to their collaboration with Oberlin artists.

“This college has such an expansive network of artists that also want to do social justice work, that want their work to be for good,” Meyer said.

For some student artists, donating their art might’ve been an opportunity to put disused creations to use, but it also provided inspiration.

“Sometimes it can be a little bit hard to find a reason to do art, so I think this is a really good way to use my art for something thatʼs really important,” College second-year and ECVI volunteer Camila Ciembroniewicz said.

At the end of the night, as auction winners claimed their spoils and evaluated how to transport the pieces home — the aforementioned neon armchair closing at a bid of $60 — and feelings of warmth and community lingered in the room.

“As much as Oberlin students want to take care of huge global issues, itʼs also important to take care of the local ones, and this event is a really cool way to be a part of that,” Meyer said.

• April 21, 2023
• Partner Marketing

This blog is a part of a series highlighting the perspectives of partner marketing executives across the globe. You’ll hear our guest writers’ experiences facing challenges in the partner ecosystem and their insights from their years of experience.

The typical preamble of a partnership agreement reads something like this: The parties agree to work together, develop joint solutions, enable joint sales and marketing and help each other gain entry into markets that provide incremental and new opportunities for business growth and customer success.

To fuel alliances and partnerships, it’s fundamentally important for two or more companies to develop joint messaging and content that empowers marketing departments to deliver awareness and demand generation activities. Joint messaging enables sellers to present a pitch to customers and prospects that resonates as a solution that comes from one company.

In my career I’ve seen many examples of partnerships with powerful joint messaging. For example, in the 2009-2010 timeframe VMware, Cisco and EMC created one of the first versions of a private cloud solution. The messaging creators developed a potent triumvirate that launched an entire industry around hyperconverged infrastructure. In 2016, AWS and VMware developed a powerful message for VMware customers to operate in the world’s most prominent cloud. In 2022, a very powerful relationship was ignited as NVIDIA and Deloitte collaborated to help enterprises easily build and operate AI and Metaverse services.

One approach to create joint messaging for a partner solution compares the compelling value proposition of a solution with priorities, trends and spending data from analyst and CIO surveys, like Oracle Cloud and VMware did for their combined solution. As a result, control, security and predictability were top of the list in 2021 analyst reports and videos.

I’m proud to be part of the Partner Marketing Visionaries community. On March 29, 2023, I had the opportunity to discuss my favorite topic – partner messaging with my industry colleagues Annie Martin (Microsoft), Lena Wiegering (Dataminr) and Tyillere Hansen (Slack). In the panel discussion, Messaging: The Art & Science of Building, they shared their expert opinions, perspectives and guidelines for developing joint messaging with alliances and partners. Here are some key takeaways from our conversation.

What do you think about when formulating the “together is better” message with a strategic alliance?

Annie Martin: “The first step should include definition from people involved in the partnership to define what ‘better’ means in ‘better together.’ Joint branding and messaging is more than just putting two logos together. We need to ask, what would compel a customer to work with us together? We need to articulate a joint-value message at the beginning of the partnership. Slowing down to define what better is sets us up for success.”

What is the typical process and approach for developing joint messaging?

Lena Wiegering: “The first discussion should involve product marketing teams from both partners and ask, ‘What type of partnership is this?’ In some scenarios, the partnership is an integrated solution. In other cases, it’s a partnership where a customer would buy two products together to create a solution. Gaining executive sponsorship and involving sales leadership is fundamentally important to developing strong partner messaging. Other elements include building deliverables and establishing a feedback loop for sales and marketing campaigns is part of the process. It’s not a one and done routine. Messaging needs to be adjusted and optimized over time.”

How is messaging documented and ultimately enforced with sales and marketing?

Tyillere Hansen: “Documenting a list of assets and how they will be used is a first step. Typically, a list of go-to-market assets includes creating modular slides that allows integration into pitch decks for sales and solution architects/engineers. Other assets include sales battlecards, customer solution briefs and website pages. Setting expectations up front with Sales and Marketing helps to enforce how messaging is used. The teams should understand how documents will reviewed. Defining expectations for a partner program needs to clarify how the joint-brand will be represented, considering how competitors will perceive the joint-brand, specifying when review cycles will occur, gaining support for legal and other teams to review the joint-messaging. If people understand all of these elements, then enforcement will not be a surprise.”

Annie, Lena and Tyillere also shared some best practices when creating joint-value messaging.

• Lena Wiegering: “Keeping messaging fresh and current is difficult. Define where the document repository resides and who will manage the messaging. Declare a feedback loop process to refine and update the messaging.”
• Annie Martin: “Implement a methodology to respond to market changes. Updating messaging is critically important. During the pandemic, I directed my team to adjust our partner messaging so that it was current.”
• Tyillere Hansen: “Customer feedback from events is valuable. At events, we can see, in real-time, how customers react on message and if it lands.”

At the end of the session, an interesting question from the audience was asked: “How does ChatGPT and Bard influence messaging development?” Annie said, “I’m so excited about it. This is going to save time, I can ask the deep questions, it can be a collation service so I can then add and my apply my thinking and personality.”

Tyillere has used ChatGPT to help create a script for a podcast, which provided topics ideas and saved hours of time. Of course, the process wasn’t perfect, and Tyillere clarified the ChatGPT output and refined it with points that the AI did not include. Lena said, “This technology helps to eliminate some of the initial work that is a slog. This capability allows people to focus energy on other things such as, measurement and optimization. I see a lot of benefit here.”

For more insights and best practices around creating effective joint messaging, watch Messaging: The Art & Science of Building. And once you’ve built out your partner messaging, watch Creating a Successful Marketing Plan with Partners to explore critical elements of a successful partner marketing plan.

partner marketing, partner marketing ecosystems

When describing students and their work, it’s easy to fall back on words like “aspiring,” “hopeful” or even “amateur.” There’s the impression that they won’t be prepared to make a significant contribution until sometime in the future. That it won’t happen until after they receive a degree and secure a job that kicks off their career path. While in school, a student is still incubating, awaiting the time when what they dream and do begins to change the world.

This is far from the case for the innovators enrolled in the Music History and Industry degree program at UCLA. These students are leading a revolution right here, right now. An event on Sunday, April 30 offers attendees the chance to experience first-hand the creativity and drive of the graduating seniors presenting capstone work.

“Drop the Needle: Remixing the Music Industry” will present a line-up of performances, music videos, podcasts, panel discussions, short films, and compelling discussions. Free and open to the public, the event will take place in Lani Hall from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

26 students are completing this capstone course as a requirement for their Music History and Industry undergraduate degree. The course empowered them not only to hone their passion project but also to sharpen skills to garner critical support for that project—generating marketing materials, building websites, taking advantage of social media, and navigating other ways to boost the project at hand and empower them well beyond graduation.

Lukas Castro describes his project as “a full immersion into the resources one needs as an aspiring ‘artistic’ or ‘creative’ entrepreneur. My goal is to provide independent artists and music students alike with the support they need to begin developing new approaches to self-promotion and pragmatic business models upon entering into the music industry.”

Quinn Campbell is prepared to talk about the all-important marketing and release plan that follows the creation of an album, punctuating the presentation with a screening of a music video. Brooke Maytorena’s presentation will span the process behind her first EP “I Don’t Remember,” from concept and demos to artwork and marketing, while Jonathan Tsai discusses the process behind his EP “Teenage Nightmare!”, followed by a performance of a track off the record. Katsura Uthus will offer a multimedia presentation about the EP “Bedroom Rock,” an aural exploration of the subject of mental illness.

With a focus on the technical side of music, Antonio Estrada’s company ProSoundly looks to transform the music production services market and innovate how music producers approach their craft. Estrada’s pitch reads, “We plan to increase the convenience and creativity of music making by offering music production packs, educational videos, mix/master services, original track production, and an AI synthesizer all on our website.” During the event on April 30, Estrada’s presentation will include audio and visual examples of the website’s products.

In perfect step with raging debates about AI, Tara Tempesta’s presentation will examine music creation by artificial intelligence and issues of copyright, asking, “What is the impact and how does legislation need to change?” 

These burgeoning creators are wise to the power of music to propel social justice. “Pink Is Power”, led by Lulu Dawson, is a female-fronted music festival furthering opportunities in the music industry, celebrating women’s contributions to music, arts, and culture with a full vendor fair and festival lineup. Annika Dudley’s Elevator Music is a diverse programming initiative aimed to allow diverse artists to be properly compensated for their work while providing free performance art to community members. 

“This programmatic initiative comes as a result of many of my experiences as a young musician growing up in Los Angeles,” Dudley posted on Instagram. “Through this journey, I hope to inspire new audiences, provide budding BIPOC and Queer artists with a platform, and elevate our community through sound, visuals, and more!” 

Samantha Heller’s Sam X Sam Productions is a not-for-profit production organization dedicated to creating community and opportunity for female, non-binary, and LGBTQ+ creatives within the music industry. “Through our Music for Movement benefit concert series, we aim to provide a platform for our female and gender-nonconforming artists while raising funds and awareness for women’s right to bodily autonomy,” Heller wrote.

Marlee Orr’s project is centered upon a live performance of Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” as an exemplification of emotion underlying the Civil Rights Movement. Emmon Amid will perform tracks off “Generation Lost,” an EP based on lost stories and generational trauma among the Persian community following the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Joshua Sung’s EP “Good Intentions with Bad Habits” reflects the perspective of Asian Americans, made in collaboration with other Asian American artists alongside him. Sung will also perform tracks from the EP.

The first student-run record label at UCLA comes out of this capstone as Cherry Pop Records. During the capstone event, Aliah Gaoteote will talk about the label’s mission to empower students with hands-on music industry experience working directly with local artists. Audience members will get a first listen of a song from the label’s debut release.

Radius Music Group (RMG) is a modern music management agency representing artists needing a team. “At Radius, we support our musicians by providing booking services, creative direction assistance, and project rollouts. Our goal is to continue to build our artists and the community around them and, for us, that starts in our home of Los Angeles,” said founder Kelsey Kelly, who will present a discussion with one of the agency’s artists.

Podcasts are becoming an increasingly significant piece of the music industry pie which students in the capstone are capitalizing on. Kryztyna Hernandez’s “The Cliffnotes Podcast” offers the opportunity to discuss personal music ideas and opinions. A sample of the podcast will be played for the Lani Hall audience after a presentation about the genesis of the project.

Film and music often go hand in hand. Remember Me, a documentary by Samantha Najemy (aka Sam Alon) and Annabelle Hendrickson, follows the latter as she takes on the LA music scene as an independent artist with important discussions about identity and sexism alongside other challenges of “making it” in the scene. A live performance by Hendrickson’s band will follow the screening.

The list above skims just the surface of an event rich with entrepreneurship, research, dedication, and passion. Visit the Drop the Needle website for the latest updates to the event line-up, including announcements about special guests, and learn more about the incredibly talented students behind the event. They’re gonna change the music industry one day.

Scratch that. They already are.

Nigel Sussman’s Welcome to West Berkeley mural. Credit: Nigel Sussman
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Three blocks in the Gilman District will be closed to traffic Sunday as the decade-old shopping district debuts a new street fair. 

Put on by the commercial district’s business association, the event will bring together 70 vendors, including jewelers, potters, artists and 10 food trucks, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on April 23. Fifth Street will be closed between Gilman and Camelia streets, and Camelia will be closed from Fourth Street to Sixth. 

SHOH Gallery owner Julie McCray, who helped start the Gilman District business association, said the goal of the family-friendly fair is to celebrate the neighborhood’s creative spirit and working-class roots. Organizers hope to hold the fair annually.

McCray, a lifelong Berkeley resident, said she moved her fine art gallery from San Francisco to Gilman Street in 2016 because “it’s where the art is being made.” 

In the 1800s, much of what is today West Berkeley used to be Ocean View, an unincorporated blue-collar settlement whose residents mostly worked in manufacturing plants, mills, and lumber plants. Later the area became a hub of West Berkeley’s “smokestack” industries, exemplified by Pacific Steel Casting, which closed its Second Street factory in 2018.  

McCray said the street fair aims, in part, to honor the area’s history. 

“This area still has that vibe,” McCray said. “It’s still multicultural makers [and] people doing things with their hands.” 

Visual art will be a focus at the street fair. Berkeley artist Nigel Sussman will do live mural painting on plywood, and kids and adults will be invited to make chalk drawings on the pavement and participate in an interactive mural-making activity led by artists Joey Rose and Alexandra Underwood. 

While the district has become known for its wineries, many of which will be doing tastings, the fair itself will be an alcohol-free zone.

A DJ will play music aboard the Pacific Neptune Chariot, a giant “mutant vehicle” with enormous seahorses decorating it initially designed for Burning Man. (Dancing is encouraged.)  

The fair will cost around $4,000 to host, McCray said, with vendors paying between $50 to $100 to book a spot. The arts nonprofit Commotion West Berkeley provided $3,000 for art and marketing purposes, and Gilman District will cover any remaining costs using $10,000 the city of Berkeley gave the group in 2022.

The Gilman District is working toward solidifying itself as an official business improvement district, McRay said, with a goal of giving the district’s business owners, artists and builders more say in city government. The Elmwood and Solano business improvement districts, for example, are enshrined in city code and have the power to levy annual assessment fees from its businesses to spend on events, entertainment, marketing, beautifying efforts and more.