Cold, hard numbers don’t mix very well with the flood of emotions triggered by a mural or a piece of music. That’s why turning such intangibles into line items on a county budget can be tricky.
In Pinellas County, Barbara St. Clair is the person responsible for doing just that. As the new executive director of Creative Pinellas, she’s charged with bolstering the county’s creatives both to the county and the public at large.
St. Clair started as executive director of the agency on Jan. 4, replacing local arts maven (and CL contributor) Mitzi Gordon, who resigned last fall. It’s an organization with a complex past that’s been subject to the pitfalls of both local politics and the economy.
But St. Clair, a playwright and former marketing executive whose resume includes the likes of Bright House Networks, said the job, while challenging, is a perfect confluence of her interests.
“When this situation crossed my radar, I thought, wow, that can be a situation where I can apply my business sense and my marketing skills and the branding experience I have to really help the organization,” she said. “And I can also be involved with the arts community, and my creative side can be nurtured and grow as well.”
Creative Pinellas launched in 2011 from the ashes of the Pinellas County Cultural Affairs Department. Like its counterparts in most counties, Cultural Affairs had a sizable staff and a multimillion-dollar budget, one that gave out grants to individual artists, arts organizations and venues.
But then the economy tanked, and the county had to unload millions from its budget.
Following the lead of one of its then-members, Susan Latvala, the Pinellas County Commission opted to sunset the agency. The meager replacement: $300,000 in seed money for a tiny 501c4 nonprofit, Creative Pinellas, whose primary function would be to market the county’s arts scene via social media and a website called ARTiculate.
The organization’s budget, which was supplemented with revenue from “Support the Arts” license plates, covered one full-time position, a part-timer and a handful of freelancers.
T. Hampton Dohrman, the first executive director, left in 2014. Gordon, who had served as a part-time marketing manager for a couple of years, succeeded him in the position.
With such a small budget, the agency’s scope was limited to occasional fundraising events and promotion. Other organizations filled in the gaps.
“Frankly when the cultural council…was [dismantled] by the county commission, well over a million dollars just disappeared,” said John Collins, director of the St. Pete Arts Alliance.
Collins’s nonprofit, though its focus is at the city level, conducts a countywide arts education program for Pinellas schools as well as grant writing and intellectual property workshops. The alliance is also helping carry out an exhaustive study of the arts’ economic impact countywide.
County commissioners have sought to restore public funding for the arts, though not to prior levels. Ultimately the budget that was approved last fall included about $250,000 for Creative Pinellas; Visit St. Pete/Clearwater provided another $100,000. (These amounts will be added to the remaining funds from the original $300,000 grant.) Creative Pinellas has also been designated the county's local arts agency, and may begin offering seed grants to artists and arts organizations as well.
“It’s come a little bit full circle in how it started,” said Creative Pinellas board member Nancy Loehr.
Former executive director Gordon declined to comment on the organization or the new hire. St. Clair, whose salary is about $80,000, said she first plans to tackle the agency’s education component as well as a revamp of its website. In February, she hopes to host a countywide arts summit.
“Creative Pinellas is really in a unique position to provide some leadership and to sort of be a catalyst for the arts in the public sector and in the private sector, countywide,” St. Clair said. “Part of what we’re going to do this year is really spend some time investigating and talking to people and listening to people and articulating what that catalyst looks like.”
County Commissioner Karen Seel, a non-voting Creative Pinellas board member, said St. Clair’s business acumen and enthusiasm for the arts should bolster the organization’s presence.
“We’re really excited,” Seel said. “She’s going to be great for the organization and great for Pinellas County.”
Collins said he’s also optimistic about her potential. “It’s a new year with a new director and my views are very positive on what they will be able to achieve,” he said.
This article appears in Jan 7-13, 2016.