Questionnaire: From Hamden Arts Commission.....
Questionnaire:
Address:
Occupation:
Role in or related contribution to the cultural arts in general:
Specific contribution(s) or support of the cultural arts in Hamden:
What do you regard as your most significant contribution to the arts?
Is there someone else you would like to nominate who has contributed to the cultural arts in Hamden or who is from Hamden and has done so elsewhere? Please provide contact information if possible.
Address:
Beverly Richey
8675 North Point Drive
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
53217
Beverly Richey
8675 North Point Drive
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
53217
Occupation:
Independent Artist/Organizer
The only question I have for you is what do you consider your greatest accomplishment/contribution to the cultural arts?
Role in or related contribution to the cultural arts in general:
I was responsible for changing my job title once I was hired at the Arts Council. I was the first artist that the arts council every hired. I served as a board member for over a year before being hired on staff.
Once I was in the office... I changed my job title and description from PR Director to communications director. I understood the value of the calendar that the Arts Council was producing and sending out by mail to its members (at that time a little over a thousand). We developed a communications department and worked to move the publication from a one sided calendar (which members hung on their refrigerator) to what you all recognize now as the New Haven Arts paper.
These changes took place in steps and the first ones were the adding of photos of arts events on the calendar to make it more interesting to look at and to better promote the activities that artists and organizations were creating. This was the first big step. We then started to create a monthly newsletter which was separate but it demonstrated the need to have a way to include more information about the variety of people and events taking place in the community.
It was shortly after that I was sent to Apple headquaters in Cupertino Valley for several days of training on their new technology. Each participant was sent back to their non profit organization with a free Apple Computer System and it's revolutionary desktop publishing software.
My art practice began in the late 1970's and quickly developed in the direction of art activism. It was a very dynamic time in the arts when causes were front and center in this country. It was the beginning of the aids epidemic, the rise of feminism and in general a time when under the leadership of art historian and critic Lucy Lippard, there was a call to artists to take a stand against mono culture as well as non-utility in the arts.
I was fortunate to apprentice in the studio of Paul Rutkovsky who was teaching art at Pair School of Art in Hamden and Southern Connecticut College at the time. It was there my true sense of myself as an artist began developing. His studio and organization were in the Hamilton Clockworks building in New Haven and it became an important gathering spot for art events organized by Papier Mache Video Institute.
I never thought of myself as contributing to the cultural arts during any of my time as either a volunteer or as an employee of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. I was actively engaged in the work that seemed relevant to me and others I was interacting with at the time. We were artists living in a community that was conflicted about our value.
The greater New Haven Art community understood itself as having world class art connected to it's world class Yale Art Gallery and it's location to New York City (it saw it's art center as NYC). It was also a community that was very close to New York City and Boston and felt that that was where the quality artists were. We (local artists some affiliated (graduates or spouses) with Yale University and others who were not) were here and we had needs and issues which were specific to living and working as artists in the greater New Haven area.
Growing up in the shadow of Yale University with a very clear distinction between those affilated and those not otherwise known as the town/gown us and them distiction is the critical lens to view my work. The work reflects the experience of being an outsider in one's own hometown (Hamden). This experience was not lost on me or my family who were native to the area left me with many questions and concerns related to the effects of elitism on local communities.
I experienced it growing up and as I matured my concerns deepened. I was fortunate to be able to develop an artistic voice which allowed me to explore these issues in a wide variety of ways. As my art and leadership skills evolved (under the guidance of Arts Council Executive Director Bitsie Clark) I was able to expand and better express my concerns about the well being of the general community.
I must stress that I am now able to understand and even talk about these issues but in the most active stages of this work I did not intellectualize the work. I simply did it. It was a passionate cause and I was completely engrossed in learning as much as I could about organizations and collaborative art making processes. I was sensitive to my own position as both an insider and an outsider and I was excited about what I believed was possible if the two communities worked together.
Given that reality I understood that it was critical that the LOCAL ARTS COMMUNITY stand on its own feet and start to take responsibility for growing its own local community scene and resources.
The specifics of my accomplishments are mostly documented in the various articles written at that time about my art projects, community projects and my job as PR/Communications director at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. I was also the first artist to be hired by the Arts Council of Greater New Haven after serving on their Board of Directors.
I recall that decade with enormous affection. It was a truly amazing time with some of the most meaningful experiences of my life. My successes were tremendous and satisfactions great. It was necessary as I express in my last interview to move in a new direction.
My time in the New Haven community came to an end in 1994. In the last 19 years I have been a resident of the state of Wisconsin. I chose the midwest as a way to explore another region of this country. I became interested in a region that was more openly committed to the concept of public rather than private. I have had the pleasure of living in a very small rural community, Madison, Wi and now I reside in the very Urban and diverse city of Milwaukee. I have maintained my connections to each of these communities and have enjoyed my life as a midwesterner.
I have continued to use and explore my art as tools to organize and inform others about issues that seemed relevant. This has been of particular importance in the last couple of years when the entire political situation became quite serious.
In the interim I developed a very strong volunteer practice as well as working in more personal art productions with a gallery in NYC. These digital moving media works were created as part of collaborative endeavors and required a high degree of technical ability.
In 2005 I had the opportunity to return to school. Initially I was planning to enter a fine arts program... I found that my interest in the study of Art History was persistant. I slowly began to merge my art making with studying and found that it was this combination to be of maximum satisfaction.
In the last year I have added my effort to help build an arts collective gallery in a small town in the western part of the state which has repeatedly been uprooted by flooding.
Growing up in the shadow of Yale University with a very clear distinction between those affilated and those not otherwise known as the town/gown us and them distiction is the critical lens to view my work. The work reflects the experience of being an outsider in one's own hometown (Hamden). This experience was not lost on me or my family who were native to the area left me with many questions and concerns related to the effects of elitism on local communities.
I experienced it growing up and as I matured my concerns deepened. I was fortunate to be able to develop an artistic voice which allowed me to explore these issues in a wide variety of ways. As my art and leadership skills evolved (under the guidance of Arts Council Executive Director Bitsie Clark) I was able to expand and better express my concerns about the well being of the general community.
I must stress that I am now able to understand and even talk about these issues but in the most active stages of this work I did not intellectualize the work. I simply did it. It was a passionate cause and I was completely engrossed in learning as much as I could about organizations and collaborative art making processes. I was sensitive to my own position as both an insider and an outsider and I was excited about what I believed was possible if the two communities worked together.
Given that reality I understood that it was critical that the LOCAL ARTS COMMUNITY stand on its own feet and start to take responsibility for growing its own local community scene and resources.
The specifics of my accomplishments are mostly documented in the various articles written at that time about my art projects, community projects and my job as PR/Communications director at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. I was also the first artist to be hired by the Arts Council of Greater New Haven after serving on their Board of Directors.
I recall that decade with enormous affection. It was a truly amazing time with some of the most meaningful experiences of my life. My successes were tremendous and satisfactions great. It was necessary as I express in my last interview to move in a new direction.
My time in the New Haven community came to an end in 1994. In the last 19 years I have been a resident of the state of Wisconsin. I chose the midwest as a way to explore another region of this country. I became interested in a region that was more openly committed to the concept of public rather than private. I have had the pleasure of living in a very small rural community, Madison, Wi and now I reside in the very Urban and diverse city of Milwaukee. I have maintained my connections to each of these communities and have enjoyed my life as a midwesterner.
I have continued to use and explore my art as tools to organize and inform others about issues that seemed relevant. This has been of particular importance in the last couple of years when the entire political situation became quite serious.
In the interim I developed a very strong volunteer practice as well as working in more personal art productions with a gallery in NYC. These digital moving media works were created as part of collaborative endeavors and required a high degree of technical ability.
In 2005 I had the opportunity to return to school. Initially I was planning to enter a fine arts program... I found that my interest in the study of Art History was persistant. I slowly began to merge my art making with studying and found that it was this combination to be of maximum satisfaction.
In the last year I have added my effort to help build an arts collective gallery in a small town in the western part of the state which has repeatedly been uprooted by flooding.
I was responsible for changing my job title once I was hired at the Arts Council. I was the first artist that the arts council every hired. I served as a board member for over a year before being hired on staff.
Once I was in the office... I changed my job title and description from PR Director to communications director. I understood the value of the calendar that the Arts Council was producing and sending out by mail to its members (at that time a little over a thousand). We developed a communications department and worked to move the publication from a one sided calendar (which members hung on their refrigerator) to what you all recognize now as the New Haven Arts paper.
These changes took place in steps and the first ones were the adding of photos of arts events on the calendar to make it more interesting to look at and to better promote the activities that artists and organizations were creating. This was the first big step. We then started to create a monthly newsletter which was separate but it demonstrated the need to have a way to include more information about the variety of people and events taking place in the community.
It was shortly after that I was sent to Apple headquaters in Cupertino Valley for several days of training on their new technology. Each participant was sent back to their non profit organization with a free Apple Computer System and it's revolutionary desktop publishing software.
The Arts Council of Greater New Haven as far as I know what one of the first if not the first office in the city to be doing it's own in house type setting. With the money we saved on typesetting costs we moved forward to increase the number of calendars produced monthly and started to distribute them freely to the public.
In time were were able to develop the advertising revenue to expand the actual publication to include articles and to get more and more of them out to the community. This all began while I was director of communications, however I could never have done it without some of the amazing people who worked in the department during that time. I would be extremely remiss if I did not mention the heroic efforts of Lydia Bornick, Rebecca Stevens, Mimsie Coleman, and Tom Augst. The communications department also had an outstandingly supportive committee consisting of Photographer Tim Feresten and Rick ?. It was an exciting time and we were a bustling little office in the basement of the foundry building on Whitney Avenue. We were part of a time and place with a new executive director about to launch her second life as a leader in the arts. For those of us who were there at that time... we all learned a tremendous amount from Bitise Clark.
There are many things which I did alone and with others that created a strong sense that OUR little local community could. We were living in the shadows of a major world class university and we needed to step more fully up and not just serve but help elevate and create a more sustainable sense of local culture and community. In retrospect we worked together organically and collaboratively to support one another and to find ways to expose and express ourselves and our concerns.
It is only retrospectively do I see how I contributed to my community. It came naturally to me.
Specific contribution(s) or support of the cultural arts in Hamden:
As co-founder and codirector of women in the Arts I was part of the initial team of individuals to bring attention to the Hamden Architect Alice Washburn. Our organization featured her work in one of our annual month long celebrations.
As an arts administrator I served all Hamden arts organizations that were members of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven.
During all my active years working both as an artist and as an arts administrator I was living in Hamden. I lived for between 1982-88 at 93 James Street, Mt Carmel and then between 1989-1993 at 207 Armory Street. During that period my mother remained a Hamden resident. During my childhood years I lived on the border between Hamden and New Haven and my parents had one of first businesses in the Sherman Ave Industrial park in the northern part of the town.
I understood the differences early on between northern and southern Hamden and enjoyed the contrasts they offered.
What do you regard as your most significant contribution to the arts?
There were many wonderful things that happened during those years and I have been careful to document them as much as possible. I am satisfied by some of the projects I started which are still vital to the community. I am especially pleased to see the Arts Paper continuing to be a major asset to the arts community and the McNight Gallery in the Arts Council offices. That was an early effort of mine which some will remember as the SMALL SPACE. I was particularly concerned that the Small Space be an non jurried space and that it be open to any Arts Council member who was willing to put the effort into organizing a show. This proved to be an important step for artists and administrators to stop judging art and start appreciating it. This was an important step to make in a community that was surrounded by value judgements.
I helped to launch the coordinated gallery openings in the Audubon Arts Center. The first time we coordinated, we called it "UNITE-US-TONIGHT" and the creative Arts Workshop, The Munson Gallery and The Arts Council's Small Space Gallery all had opening receptions at the same time. This expanded in time but it took a lot of convincing people to share their audience.
I also had the pleasure of sharing information and skills out of our office and department. As part of the Arts Council we helped new arts organizations and emerging artists with press releases and media contacts and attended as many of the events as we could.
As an artist my art itself also emphasized working together and keeping things open and public. It would be hard for me to overlook the great privilege to create the city's 350th birthday cake. This was done in collaboration with a Hamden based Bakery. This was a bakery I had worked in during my high school years. Leon's Bakery provides all the cake to serve 3500 pieces of cake free to the people of New Haven for my public work The Amazing Bureaucratic Birthday Cake.... serving the people.
This work was commissioned by Robert Gregson who was working for the city at that time. We had over a hundred volunteers involved with this project.
Last but not least co-founding Women in the Arts was another highlight of my time working in greater New Haven Arts community. This was another model of community involvement where inclusivity was the model.
Is there someone else you would like to nominate who has contributed to the cultural arts in Hamden or who is from Hamden and has done so elsewhere? Please provide contact information if possible.
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