Photo exhibit makes statement for Wilson

A reception at the Wilson Arts Center last night celebrated the Martin Luther King holiday and the exhibit of photographs taken immediately after King's 1968 assassination by Burk Uzzle. The galleries were packed with people getting close-up, lingering looks at the black-and-white photos. It was an extraordinary exhibit of anguished faces and a historical artifact documenting one of the most tragic and turbulent events in American history. Uzzle, the quiet, humble photographer, graciously discussed his pictures with gallery visitors, adding insight into the events that even his perceptive photographs could not capture.

From here, the exhibit goes to the American Tobacco Museum in Durham and likely will continue to travel from there. The exhibit is a major coup for the Arts Council of Wilson and has given the Arts Council more state and national publicity than it has ever known. Arts Council officials are still hoping for some international recognition of the magnitude of this exhibit. The Arts Council owes a tremendous debt to Uzzle, who has adopted Wilson as his hometown and sings its praises again and again.

Sometimes it takes an outsider to fully appreciate a city, and Uzzle serves that purpose in Wilson. He is bolstered by Theatre of the American South founder Gary Cole, who was at the gallery reception last night. Cole chose Wilson and the Edna Boykin Cultural Center as home for his theater festival and continues to praise the hospitality and artistic civic-mindedness of this city. One long-time resident, who chose to move here from elsewhere, has proposed promoting Wilson as "the city of the arts." Given last night's reception, Uzzle constant praise and the strong local arts community, it's not far-fetched.

Council gets out of nonprofit decision-making

Wilson City Council has voted to move decisions about nonprofit funding to the Wilson County United Way. It's a sensible solution — at least a partial solution — to a process born of needless guilt and embarrassment that had become a political football and a sore spot for council members. Taking the city's decisions about which nonprofits are funded out of the hands of council members and putting it in the hands of United Way officials (full disclosure: I am a member of the United Way Board of Directors) removes politics and gives the thankless job to a group more attuned to community needs and more accustomed to evaluating charitable agencies.

That said, however, council needs to go further with this change of policy. The nonprofit funding controversy grew out of council's decision in the late 1980s or early 1990s to impose a $10 fee on late payment of utility bills. The policy was a sensible business decision that any provider of services or financing (check to see what a late credit card payment costs you) would impose. But council cowered at the criticism over the new fee and agreed to give the money to local nonprofits. That set off a gold rush among nonprofits, nearly all of which were worthwhile and responsible charities. Each year council had trouble deciding which of the applicants should be funded. Some choices, such as the Arts Council and Imagination Station, were obvious. Other funded applicants failed to provide audited financial information. It was a mess.

After several convolutions, council is now ready to hand off the hot potato to United Way, which is better able to handle it. Council should make one more decision: Unlink the amount of charitable funding from the late utility payment fees. There is no logical reason why the two should be linked. The late fees are a business necessity. Nonprofit funding is a contribution to local needs the city is not otherwise addressing. Conservatives, who think charities should not receive government money, and liberals, who think government money can solve all of society's problems, will debate whether city/county/state/federal funding is appropriate, but there's no reason to tie the amount the city contributes to charity (less than half of one percent of the city budget) to utility late fees.

For its part, United Way will want to use the same standards of fiscal responsibility and transparency it applies to its allocations to member agencies in deciding who receives city money. But the city's contributions should be handled and disbursed separately from the United Way contributions from individuals and businesses. And, yes, I believe it is entirely appropriate for the city to separately fund the Arts Council of Wilson in compensation for its operation of a youth theater program once run by city recreation and for its management of the city-owned Edna Boykin Cultural Center.

Tour validates Wilson's artsy reputation

One transplanted Wilsonian proclaimed last Saturday's first Visual Arts Studio Tour "as good as anything we ever saw in New York." The day-long open house at the studios of dozens of artists was proclaimed a success, one that is likely to become an annual event.

This success enhances Wilson's status as an oasis for artists and bolsters Lindsey de Guehery's suggestion that Wilson promote itself as the "City of the Arts." If Durham can transform its image from rough-and-tumble Tobacco Town to City of Medicine, Wilson can effect a similar transition.

Saturday's tour truly did validate the art proponents' claim that Wilson is an art-friendly and art-supportive community. From Studio One, an artists cooperative in the Walston Center, to world-renown photographer Burk Uzzle's studio home on Vance Street to celebrated whirligig artist Vollis Simpson's whimsical creations near Lucama and in downtown Wilson and to the numerous other painting, sculpture, pottery, woodworking and fabric artists around town, local artists give Wilson a distinctive patina. One of the delights of last weekend's tour was that most studios were not crowded, giving patrons an opportunity to talk to the artists about their art. The Wilson Arts Council's holiday art reception is often so jam-packed that it's difficult to see all the art on display and for sale.

Wilson can leverage this acknowledgment among the arts community of the town's receptiveness toward artists by continuing to support the Arts Council (an object of frequent criticism among the angry philistines) and by promoting art on the city's, county's and Tourism Authority's Web sites.

Next month, the Theater of the American South makes its third run in Wilson, bringing top-rated professional theater, along with cooking demonstrations and lectures on Southern culture and literature, to Wilson. By the fall, Barton College should be ready to dedicate its Lauren Kennedy and Alan Campbell Theatre, giving a decisive boost to the college's drama program.

Promoting Wilson's artistic potential could pay big dividends for the city, but that promotion has been largely limited to local artists, such as Uzzle, who have been acclaiming this community to artist friends in places such as New York. Local organizations, such as the Arts Council, Downtown Development Corporation and the city need to take up the banner. The local Tourism Authority would ordinarily be a key promoter, but the tax-supported agency is ridiculously ensconced in a nondescript storefront next to a tobacco retailer off Interstate 95, miles from the artists who give Wilson a distinctive persona.

Arts Council, City Council taking risks

The Arts Council of Wilson's decision to decline Wilson City Council's gift of the Edna Boykin Cultural Center might have been the only option it could afford to take, but it was still a risky decision. City Council, hastily and without real discussion, voted last month to hand the historic theater over to the Arts Council, which had been managing the theater since its reopening in 1996. The circa 1919 former vaudeville theater, with its restored plaster work and new seating, has been host to numerous concerts, Playhouse plays, Theater of the American South and other events. Accepting the deed would have meant accepting responsibility for insuring the public venue and maintaining/repairing it. The costs the Arts Council would be accepting are unknown.

The Arts Council's risk, of course, is that its snub might anger City Council, which has a stranglehold on the group's finances. City Council contributes $100,000 annually to the nonprofit, in part to cover the expenses of a youth theater program the city used to provide through its recreation program. Additional Arts Council funding comes from grants and membership dues. The group has a broad and enthusiastic membership, constituting a potentially powerful political force. The city also owns the Wilson Arts Center, the former BB&T headquarters office that was given to the city by the bank.

So while the Arts Council's refusal of the theater deed was a risky decision, forcing the deed onto the Arts Council would be risky for City Council. Wilson has a growing, statewide reputation as an arts haven in eastern North Carolina, and the Arts Council enjoys faithful support from a broad array of city residents, ranging from funky artists to wealthy benefactors.

Pushing the deed transfer makes little sense for City Council. It risks offending a large voting bloc while saving little money for the city. Including the Boykin Center on the city's umbrella insurance policy amounts to a tiny fraction of the city's expenses. Even if substantive repairs are needed in the future, the city's long-term outlay would be relatively small.

The only group benefiting from this controversy is the vocal anti-arts, anti-downtown, anti-Wilson malcontents who submit their tirades anonymously to online forums, including this blog's comments section. Let's hope City Council won't put them in charge.

City's deed transfer jeopardizes theater

Finally. Wilson City Council's plan to dump the Wilson Theatre (now the Edna Boykin Cultural Center) on the Arts Council of Wilson is at last getting some scrutiny. An article in today's Wilson Daily Times announces that Edna Boykin is upset about the city's plans to give away the landmark theater to the Arts Council. "The Arts Council positively cannot afford to take over the theater," Boykin told the newspaper, adding that if forced to accept the theater, the Arts Council would simply have to shut the doors.

Others, including the Wilson Playhouse, a highly respected amateur theater group, worries that if the Arts Council has to take over insurance, maintenance and other costs now covered by the city, it would be forced to raise the rent so high that arts groups, which operate on a shoestring budget, would have to find a cheaper venue.

City Council is toying with the future of the circa-1919 theater, which was magnificently restored in the 1990s and has become one of Wilson's top attractions. It was the Boykin Center that made it possible for Wilson to lure Theater of the American South here.

It should come as no surprise that Arts Council officials have been largely silent about all of this. City Council has the arts group over a barrel. The Arts Council receives $100,000 in city funding annually, and the wrong comment could jeopardize that essential funding. So of course they aren't going to criticize the gift.

Boykin isn't so reticent. The retired elementary school principal and former City Council member remains a determined adversary and has many admirers in Wilson. Thousands of Wilsonians began their education under her guidance. A longtime advocate of the arts and a generous donor to artistic and educational causes, Boykin will not sit silently while the Arts Council is saddled with huge new liabilities. She is a force to be reckoned with.

Last month's hasty decision needs to be reconsidered. If the city is determined to rid itself of the theater, which it purchased in the early 1980s to save Wilson from the embarrassment of having an X-rated theater so close to City Hall (the WDT article incorrectly says the city bought the theater in the 1990s), it must provide the Arts Council an additional infusion of cash to cover its added expenses. The arts community is grateful that the city spent $91,000 fixing rotted roof trusses traced to a leaky roof (that had probably been leaking for 25-plus years), but the Arts Council is not prepared to insure and maintain this building indefinitely.

This property transfer could also be seen as a threat that the city might give the Arts Council the former BB&T office that is now the Wilson Arts Center.

Some may argue that the city should not own properties not used for city operations, but watch out for the logical conclusion to that argument. The city owns Fleming Stadium, home of the Wilson Tobs and the N.C. Baseball Museum. Why not give the stadium and museum to the Tobs baseball club and see how well the team can insure and maintain that property?

The Boykin Center, the Arts Center and Fleming Stadium are all important assets that draw visitors to Wilson and enhance the quality of life for Wilson residents. The cheapest, most efficient way of keeping the properties operating and contributing to Wilson's culture and environment is through city ownership. Municipal ownership of museums, theaters, stadiums, amphitheaters and other attractions is not unusual. The city's annual costs, with the exception of occasional major repairs and renovations, are relatively cheap for what these properties contribute.