“I’ve always had my finger on the arts. To me, it feeds my soul. It’s just who I am,” Arts Council of the Valley director Jenny Burden said.
In recent years, Harrisonburg and the Shenandoah Valley have pushed to showcase more artists. Arts and artists can be found at the Harrisonburg Farmers Market. Local woodworker Roman J. Miller embarked on his artistic journey following his retirement from Eastern Mennonite University in 2016.
“It’s a thriving community. A lot of people do it as a side job. It’s not their major career, but it’s something they enjoy.”
To Miller, art can serve as motivation and inspiration to pursue his artist.
“When you participate in doing art, you express creativity and an eye for detail and beauty. Somehow those are fairly universal qualities that are part of our nature,” Miller said.
Over the years, Miller has observed the outlets for art in his community.
“Oasis downtown is a nice outlet. I live in VMRC, which is a retirement community, and art is a big thing there,” Miller said. “We have a large gallery for different artists to come and display. Sometimes I’ll have some of my things there.”
With at times a lack of creative outlets, Miller looks to fellow artists for inspiration and a sense of understanding of their craft.
“Fellow artists are good encouragement. When you see other people practicing their art or crafts, displaying it always creates a bond and an understanding,” Miller said.
Working to preserve that bond, Burden provides opportunities and encouragement for both up and coming and established artists in the community.
“The Arts Council was formed in 2000 to operate Court Square Theater, and also to give out grants to award money to artists and art educators in the community. Those became the Advancing the Arts Grants,” Burden said. “That was because artists and art educators were going to the city and [asking], ‘Can you give us funds for this project or that project?’”
The Arts Council works closely alongside the city and the county when it comes to their financial budgets and awards.
“They aren’t experts in the arts. That’s why they said, ‘Arts Council please, we want them to come to you and you all award the grants.’ They funded us for that,” Burden said.
The Arts Council grants are typically awarded to individual artists and art educators in need of financial support.
“I’ve had a couple of grants. Oasis has a couple of grants. The Arts Council of the Valley also advertises First Fridays, which is when new shows are opened around town. There’s maybe 30 venues. We’re always one of those and we appreciate the advertising,” Local stained glass artist Barbara Camph said.
Alongside the support Camph has received from grants, fundraising has been an effective way to work toward the common goal of creating more public art.
“Harrisonburg has been so great in supporting what I like to do and what Oasis likes to do,” Camph said. “For example, the mural on the back of the Texas Inn, we raised the funds on GoFundMe campaigns. It was $11,000-not peanuts. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have a mural on every building that’s ugly. Murals spice things up and give joy to people.”
Additionally, the Arts Council surveys the community on what art is displayed. In response to this, drag shows were put on in Court Square Theater. Despite these precautions, the county was unhappy with this display.
“I caught wind of this back in January, when I received a phone call from the county administrator saying ‘Jenny, are you really putting on drag shows?’ They received complaints from their constituents and the county,” Burden said. “We have a lot of people in this area who love it and it’s funny. The county didn’t see it that way, so they denied our funding. It’s just a shame. It is a shame.”
Despite the lack of funding, the Arts Council continues to strive to include all forms of art coming from a diverse group of artists. To drive their mission, they follow the acronym IDEA: Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access
“We want to serve as many people and as many different people as we can,” Burden said. “It’s not just what we think they want. We want them to tell us what they would like. We try to have exhibitions by diverse artists.”
This promotes the creation of public art all around Harrisonburg, Burden said.
“The Arts Council created a committee to work on public art and already there are quite a few murals downtown,” Burden said. “And it’s paying off.”
