Departing Arts Council Executive Looking to Continue Community Role

Matthew Hersh

You could say it's the end of an era.

When Anne Reeves, executive director of the Arts Council of Princeton, announced last week that she would abdicate the role she had held for 23 years, there was little fanfare – just a nod to the future and the growth of an in-town cultural institution that has become representative of so much of what Princeton has to offer artistically.

But in the same way that Ms. Reeves has always allowed the mission of the Arts Council to be greater than the sum of its parts, the muted display in her departure as executive director is not surprising: it seems in concert with her belief that the foundation on which the Arts Council is built is too stable to be shaken by any individual departure.

"We have a really strong foundation of the arts, and where the arts are honored," Ms. Reeves said at her home Sunday evening. "The arts bring people together to promote community and they offer all these opportunities to meet one another and to collaborate."

Ms. Reeves' anticipated departure was merely the footnote of a report last week that announced the Arts Council's $5 million capital campaign to build a new wing and expand its current structure at 102 Witherspoon Street, resulting in a 16,740 square-foot, Michael Graves-designed building.

And perhaps another reason recognition of her 23 years as executive director was not more amplified, is because she's not going away. She is taking on the role of "founding director," a sort of director emeritus, and will continue to actively assist in community outreach, fund-raising, and special events.

Besides, Ms. Reeves said, it would near-impossible to break ties with an institution that has had a pulse on the community, particularly on that of children interested in the arts. From the Howard B. Waxwood Jr. scholarship for children to the student-based START (Students for Art) program, to the "Curtain Calls" New Year's Eve event that was once so successful in town, Ms. Reeves said that continuing her relationship and furthering her role with the Arts Council was just as good as maintaining a relationship with the community at large.

She added that being involved at the Arts Council gives people insight into the "behind-the-scenes" of the community – people who do not generally appear routinely in the newspapers, but are often equally as valuable to the fabric of the town.

"There was a Ukrainian group playing at Cafe Improv Saturday night, and they were beautiful. Beautiful. And I thought 'how many people know this exists?'" she said.

Though it has been in its current facility for nearly 23 years, the Arts Council has been telling secrets of the town much longer than that. The Arts Council became a not-for-profit entity in 1967, and "moved around" to different spaces until the early 1980s, as the United Way moved on from the building that was once the "Black Y." The Arts Council finally found a home, but not without the help of then-Borough Mayor Robert Cawley, and then from Ms. Reeves' long-time friend, Mayor Barbara Sigmund.

That home, Ms. Reeves said, will take a giant leap forward toward permanency when the official expansion groundbreaking occurs, sometime in June. In fact, there was a time when the Arts Council could not envision staying in its current location and almost set sail to Hopewell. That endeavour, however, was declined by the board of trustees, who voted unanimously to pursue expansion efforts on-site.

The political and community wrangling that followed, Ms. Reeves, said, did not accurately reflect the Arts Council's mission. At times, there appeared to be a rift between the institution and the immediate surrounding John-Witherspoon neighborhood. Some residents fought against the on-site expansion, but others, while not fully supporting the idea of increasing the square-footage of the Arts Council, did not want to see Princeton lose such a resource.

"I wasn't in love with the original plans for the new Arts Council," said Leigh Avenue resident and Arts Council board member Connie Campbell when the the council received approval from the Regional Planning Board of Princeton in June 2004. "But it's not what the building is going to look like, it's what's going to be inside."

So it is a new chapter at the Arts Council. Ms. Reeves took the helm as executive director when the organization took residence at its current location in the early 1980s, as such, she anticipated her departure when plans for the new building finally began to materialize.

"I've been waiting for a new building – I've been waiting to get this ribbon cutting done," she said, adding that as the Arts Council gets bigger, it is important to have an executive in place who is as much business-minded as he or she is artistically-minded: someone who is equally left and right brained, she said.

"As something gets bigger, you have to go through hoops to get various things done whereas earlier, you'd decide to do something and find the money somewhere.

"But you can't do that when you get bigger," she said, adding that her "gifts and talents" will remain steeped in helping the Arts Council carry out its mission to the community by remaining a supporter and participant "in a creative sense," and to facilitate a smooth transition as the Arts Council moves to its temporary location at the Princeton Junior School on Fackler Road, then to an as-yet-unnamed location for much of 2006, and then to its new building by the end of that year. That said, Ms. Reeves is undeterred by the temporary locations. "The Arts Council is not a fad. It is solid and I'd like it to continue that way."

It will continue, she added, but not without the help of the board, the Arts Council staff, and grants from area supporters like the J. Seward Johnson Foundation and the Mercer County Cultural & Heritage Commission.

In looking back more than 20 years, Ms. Reeves is also looking ahead to the next 20 years, hoping the Arts Council will continue to benefit "new members of the community as well as those who have been here."

"I hope the Arts Council is right there, because the arts can do so much to build community."