MOULTRIE — Joy Yost hit the ground running in January, as the new executive director of the Arts Center of Moultrie.

“I’m just such a believer that art impacts life and it makes your life better and it just improves the quality of life in South Georgia,” Yost said.

Yost spent the last eight years working for the Tifton Council for the Arts. At the time that she was first hired, she said, it was the Tifton Museum of Arts and Heritage and consisted of a small, beautiful gallery, located in an old church that was built in 1901.

“We had a few exhibits a year. and that little job just continued to grow and grow and grow. I ended-up being the executive director for several years,” she said.

Coming from the Tifton Council for the Arts, Yost said that she knew about the Arts Center of Moultrie.

“I was very familiar with it. I visited it. I drooled over this building,” she said.

She said that the first time that she was in the building was in 2018 when the Tifton Council for the Arts brought one of their exhibits down to be displayed there.

“I loved the facility and I was so impressed with everything they were able to do because of the space. Of course, the community just really loves this space; loves and cares about art in all forms. So, that was exciting to me,” she said.

Yost said that when she saw the executive director position was open, she decided to check into it. She said that just moving down the road from Tifton to Moultrie seemed like a perfect fit because she can continue to do the things that she loves.

“It’s a place where all of my ideas and vision can really be brought to life. The building just has so much potential,” she said.

Yost said that the arts center has a great board that has a lot of energy and a vision and that the staff was wonderful.

“I feel very blessed,” she said.

Last year, the arts center was awarded a total of $100,000 from two grants. One came from the Georgia Council for the Arts and the other came from the Fox Theatre Institute, which is the Community Partnership arm of the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. These grants were earmarked for building improvements.

“The theater has been completely redone. I mean new plaster on the walls. Everything has been painted. Walls, ceiling. The floor is redone and everything’s been touched in there. So, I’m very excited,” Yost said.

She also said that the theater’s dressing rooms are in the process of being redone and they are moving anything “theater-related” to the center part of the building.

“We’ll have a ‘green room’ across the hall and then a costume and prop room. So, it’ll all be right there together. It makes sense,” she said.

Yost said that the West Wing of the building will become the education wing, which is where all of the studios will be located including class rooms, the dance studio and four practice rooms for instruments.

Also located on the wing is the Kaleidoscope Museum, which is an interactive art museum for children that was created and established by the Moultrie Service League in 2000.

“We have a lot of string instruments and I have two string instrument instructors that have reached out to us. So, we want to start the string classes back again,” she said.

She also said that they need to take a look at the instruments and see what condition they are in because they might look at doing rentals with them for students who don’t have a string instrument and want to take lessons.

“I grew up in bands so performance and music, that was my thing. I’d love to get someone in there teaching brass and woodwinds, as well. I’m open to all of those ideas,” Yost said.

She said that the arts center was definitely looking for instructors across the board, especially in voice as they don’t currently have a voice instructor. She added that they do have a couple of great piano teachers and one of them is completely booked.

She said that the center’s offices have also been fully renovated and the area where they were formerly located will become the Contemporary Gallery, which is where the art’s center’s permanent collection will be displayed.

Yost said that another project that is being worked on is putting in a Children’s Interactive Gallery right at the front of the education wing. This is a project funded by the Moultrie Service League.

“That’s their brainchild, their ideas, their vision for the space and then they’re giving to make that happen,” she said.

She said that it would be filled with hands-on art pieces for kids to touch and explore including giant color wheels that can be turned to mix the colors and big features like a huge “Lite-Brite” and a weaving station where the kids can use big ribbons to learn about weaving.

“There’s going to be a big treehouse that they can climb. So, I they’re going to call it “The McCall House” and they can climb up in there. and then, a big book of ‘Moultrie Masterpieces.’ A hang on the wall kind of book,” she said.

She said that she imagined older kids taking music lessons and their parents taking the younger siblings into the interactive gallery while they wait.

Yost said that she and the arts center’s board really wanted to focus on making sure that the building was energy efficient by replacing old doors and windows and also making sure that the building was secure.

“We really want the community to feel comfortable dropping their kids off here. That this is a safe space,” she said.

She added that they were looking into some grants to help with the funding for making those security and energy efficiency renovations.

On the outside of the building, she said, they are planning to have new landscaping and the sculpture garden will be completely redone and include an area that is for children.

“We’ll have a kind of labyrinth and maybe some musical features. Some xylophones and things that they can play on,” she said.

She said that the larger area of the garden would be made more conducive to events for rentals and plans include a permanent stage and benches. She also said that a “cut flower” garden was being planned so that they could use their own flowers when they’re decorating inside the building.

Right now, the Colquitt County School System is in the process of redoing the parking area next to the arts center and it will benefit both organizations, she said. However, a new front parking area is also in the arts center’s plans for renovations.

Yost said that they are in the phase of organizing and cleaning out things that have been stored and taking photos of them so that they know what they have.

“By the end, there won’t be a single room or closet untouched by this process. That’s our goal is to really transform,” she said.

In the midst of the renovations that have been happening, the arts center still has a full schedule of classes and workshops going on and exhibits in the gallery.

The Youth Art Month exhibit is on display, now until April 5, and a new exhibit of hyperrealistic colored pencil drawings by Sharon Hester will go on display April 25 to May 28.

The semi-annual Quilt Show will open June 20 and applications for quilt submissions are being accepted until May 25. Individuals who want to enter a quilt in the show can find the information and application at https://www.moultriearts.org/call-to-artists.

“We are starting for the summer the Moultrie Master Chorale, so that’s really exciting. Travis [Kern] is excited to do it,” Yost also said.

She said that she hoped the people that joined the choir could, going forward, be used as a resource for other performances on stage like future productions.

“I think that’s going to be a really great group of people,” she said.

Yost, the staff and the arts center’s board are in the process of planning a capital campaign to raise money for the rest of the planned renovations, which include both the outside and inside projects.

“I know that people in this community care about this building, care about what we do. So, I’m very hopeful that everybody will really rally together and make it happen,” she said.