Only Masochists Need Apply

 Wanted: executive director for nonprofit art center. Responsibilities include too much to do in too little time with too few resources. Plenty of backbreaking physical toil coupled with mind-boggling financial conundrums. Qualifications: must be able to deal with artists and a public who will stretch you as thin as Lara Flynn Boyle, or who will tear you apart like so many hyenas if the mood strikes them. Experience in a leadership position and good phone voice a must. Salary: not enough for what you will be required to do--but as there's no price you can place on this job anyway, we figure why bother even trying. Must be willing to start as soon as possible. Are you free tomorrow?

Two local visual-arts organizations in the Twin Cities--No Name Exhibitions at the Soap Factory, and pARTs Photographic Arts Gallery--have recently been advertising for new directors. And had those ads been entirely forthcoming, they may have looked quite a bit like the model above. Instead, both No Name and pARTs have stuck to the script, using such nonprofit/corporate-speak as "programmatic goals" and "organizational mission" and "donor cultivation." Perhaps this represents an attempt to disguise the truth--that these organizations fully intend to suck the living souls out of their leaders-to-be.

That's what one would have to surmise after listening to Christi Atkinson, who has been program director at No Name for the past eight years, and Vance Gellert, executive director of pARTs for eleven years. "These are tough jobs," says Gellert in a tired voice. "Some people think they are glamorous, but it's just a big pile of work." Gellert, the founder of pARTs, the Twin Cities' only nonprofit arts organization dedicated to photography, nearly retired from his position this fall. His dreams of escape were as vague as they were fleeting. Perhaps, he thought, he would find some other work, something less stressful. He would turn back to his own craft--photography--for a while, then search for some long-term projects.

But, in fact, Gellert never made it out of the building: He was unable, after a summer-long search, to hunt down a successor who would take the job. In fact, the two final candidates refused the job offer and stayed put where they were--one with the Minnesota State Arts Board, the other in New York City--when they realized all that the executive-director position entailed. As Gellert explains it, the work he does at pARTs really would fill two jobs: an administrator who pays the bills and raises funds, and a program director who curates the shows. Gellert shrugs: "We probably scared the crap out of them when they saw how much work I was doing already."

So what to do? Rather than give up, Gellert is now getting set for a major expansion and (yet another) capital campaign for the brainchild he founded. That is, pARTs is now planning to develop a partnership with the University of Minnesota and Artspace, a nonprofit property-development agency for the arts, to create what he calls "the premier organization for photography in the Midwest." The plan calls for an expansion of pARTs' current programs, a reconstruction of the gallery space, and an addition of classrooms and darkrooms.

"I just love more work," Gellert cracks dryly, then speaks in a more serious voice. "It's more work than I want, but I'm really ready to roll up my sleeves....We'll see how this goes. I might move on then. Who knows? I can't keep this up forever."

 

Christi Atkinson, meanwhile, is dreaming of potential freedom from No Name after March 2, the application deadline for a hire who will assume many of her duties. "I'm just relishing a chance to focus on my work," she says of the day job at the Walker Art Center she has held for seven of the eight years she's worked as a volunteer at No Name. (At the Walker, she is assistant director of teen programs.) Atkinson is eager to take advantage of the employee development opportunities at the Walker-- perhaps take some classes, travel, take on new projects. Also, there's a little matter of a personal life, something No Name has pretty much devoured over the years. "I can't wait to have time for personal fun, and do things like exercise, cook, and have time in the day for real things."

No Name, founded in 1988, was the first Twin Cities organization to provide a regular venue for new and emerging artists in town. When Atkinson started, she says, she loved her work, consuming as it was. And indeed, she helped the organization develop into one of the top contemporary art venues in the state. But as the arts community grew and demand by artists to show work increased, she became overwhelmed by her workload. "The last two years I haven't loved it," she says. "There was an awareness that the job was too big....It's a full-time job, raising money, getting together programs for artists, maintaining the building."