By Jeff Ophime
Arts Center Director
Every month there is a finance committee meeting here at the Arts Center to discuss the money in the accounts and the money not in the accounts. The discussions always seem to revolve around where the money came from along with the money that didn’t arrive and why it’s delinquent or may never arrive. This is a frustrating meeting for me because numbers are so black and white and final. Even good reasons for financial shortfalls have no bearing on the bottom line. Numbers are so unforgiving! Facts and figures fall into the category of “necessary evil” for me.
The Arts Center can have a great month (which is most every month) filled with extraordinary plays, musical events and colorful art projects proudly carried home by little emerging artists. Last month the Arts Center had great attendance from quilt lovers that traveled to Moultrie to see the extraordinary quilt exhibition. Everyone praised the exhibit and told everyone here at the Arts Center what a wonderful experience they had while they were here. Our current Sesquicentennial Celebration Exhibit is equally impressive. The recent award winning play “Lion In Winter” performed by ACT (Arts Center Theater) was filled to the brim with quality. On a daily basis you can walk down the hallways of the Arts Center and hear great music coming from the studios and dancers often spill out from the dance studio still tapping away. Unfortunately, quality does not necessarily translate into dollars in the non-profit art world.
Here’s my point — this is too good of an arts center and it’s too valuable of an asset to the community for it to have to struggle as hard as it does. The good thing is that the Arts Center has been able to pay all of its bills for a couple years now. We have not had to take out a single loan or ask for any type of assistance to make it through a tough month. This is a huge improvement over leaner years. I’m very proud of this accomplishment.
There have been more than a dozen directors of the Colquitt County Arts Center in the past twenty years. Even with my limited aptitude for numbers it’s easy to see that the average length of time spent here trying to make this place work is less than two years. My three years here have been rewarding in many ways but it has become clear that no matter how hard the staff and I work, the monthly financial meetings will always be the same. I generally end up feeling “set up for failure” when it comes to the end of month financials. I would guess that the bulk of the former directors figured out the same thing and moved on.
The frustrating part of this story is that the Arts Center is doing a great job of delivering creative visual and performing arts to the community. It’s my feeling that the Arts Center is taken for granted by the bulk of our citizens. “Someone else will support it.” “I guess they will just figure out a way on their own to stay afloat.”
The Arts Center is essentially a gift to the community from the Moultrie Service League that raised the funds needed to turn the old Moultrie High School built in 1928 into an arts center. This community not wanting to support the Arts Center properly is something like winning a new car and then being annoyed that they have to put gas in it.
I often drive by the Moss Farms Diving facility and I see a dozen or so kids around the pool. This is an amazing facility, and like the Arts Center, (which serves around 300 children monthly) it’s one of the attributes of Colquitt County that really stands out. Very few communities can say that they have a world class diving pool and training center. The Executive Director of the Georgia Arts Council, Susan Weiner, described our arts facilities as the best in the State of Georgia. Not many communities can say that either.
So why is it that a way was found to support the diving well with local tax funding while this type of support for the arts seems to be out of the question? I have inquired about this situation more times than I would like to think about. I generally get a blank gazed look or a sympathetic sigh. I wish that someone could explain to me why a kid that wants to jump off a diving board is worth supporting and the same kid’s brother or sister that wants to come to the Art Center for piano lessons is not supported in the same way. If you have a good answer you can reach me anytime at the Arts Center.
I’m not writing this today because I think that it will cause anything to change. The bottom line is Moultrie should probably not have a 40,000 square foot arts facility. The struggle to manage and maintain this arts organization has burnt through a long list of employees and board members. The conclusion is always the same, not enough funding to make it work.
In my opinion support is needed from local tax dollars. I know that this is a very unpopular view to have because the response is always the same, local government agencies can’t afford to do so. It’s not about money, it’s about priorities. Art is simply not a priority for individuals that control the purse strings.
At the end of the day I guess that I have “irreconcilable differences” with support issues because the value is so very clear to me. I also feel that it is my job to stick up for the arts and all that they offer to enrich everyone’s lives. We should all be thankful for the dedicated individuals that continue to support the arts in Colquitt County for the good of our entire community. I sometimes worry that they also will burnout on caring more than their share.
