POAC brings new energy to community's arts

SANDPOINT — With new digs on the Cedar Street Bridges and a renewed focus on the performing arts, the Pend Oreille Arts Council enters 2018 with an energetic vision for how culture can shape community.

At 40 years old, the arts organization looks back to early efforts that began with a couple of concerts and a small handful of art shows. Like most non-profits, POAC has seen its fates go up and down over time, but has managed to keep a weather eye on the one thing that has always seen it through — the sheer volume of local talent in and around Sandpoint.

No surprise, then, that the arts group has chosen to increase its focus on that talent as it moves through the current season. As part of the annual Performance Series, POAC is exploring ways to feature the area’s own performing artists in conjunction with those who travel the globe to ply their trade.

According to POAC Art Administrator Hannah Combs, the combination not only serves the concert series well, it also ties directly to the organization’s long-held commitment to establishing the arts as a cornerstone of a well-rounded education.

“It’s great for kids, because they get to see the breadth of what people are doing around the world while they also see the opportunities that are available to them right here at home,” she said.

Local performers will be included as opening acts for concerts in the Performance Series and in stand-alone shows of their own, Combs added.

For the first time, POAC has scheduled a concert populated by all-local musicians as part of its series. Slated for March 23, at the Heartwood Center, “Celebration of Community: Wellspring” will present a “showcase of some of the best underexposed local musical talent.”

With an average of 6-8 shows per season — which runs from fall through spring — the series brings an added benefit to schools in the Lake Pend Oreille School District through the Ovations program. Nearly as old as POAC itself, Ovations has always been a vehicle for getting traveling performers in front of as many kids as possible, whether through workshops and master classes in the schools or by filling the Panida Theater with students who get to enjoy an arts-based field trip.

It’s an idea that’s not specific to the Performance Series, as community arts groups around the nation take the same tack when booking artists for their local concert offerings.

“With each of those performances, we have the artists develop a program they can take into the schools,” Combs explained, adding that the programs can be classroom based or in the form of a student concert. “Most of the artists we work with do these outreach programs everywhere they go — it’s their favorite part of the job.”

Ovations is just one of a few POAC programs aimed at tying the arts into the core curriculum in schools. Another early addition in POAC’s history, Kaleidoscope, works in partnership with the Community Assistance League to send volunteer art teachers into elementary schools, where they teach fundamentals and techniques to Bonner County students in grades 3-6. Subsequent student involvement happens at the middle and high school levels, with both age groups taking part in the Student Art for Human Rights showing and high school artists featured in the annual Student Art Exhibit.

This cultural continuum pays off in a couple of ways: The arts are given a prominent place in schools and — in keeping with Sandpoint’s growing reputation as an arts community — young people grow up with the thought that being an artist really is one of the career paths available to them.

“Now we’re seeing professional artists who tell us they started out in the Kaleidoscope program,” said Combs.

Fueled almost exclusively by volunteers, POAC has expanded to three paid, part-time staff members who help keep things running smoothly. Along with Combs, the new office is home to visual arts coordinator Emily Bond and bookkeeper Jackie Carter. The larger staff, according to board president Carol Deaner, makes it possible to keep so many balls in the air when presenting multiple performances, gallery shows, educational programs and community events such as Art Walk and the yearly Arts & Crafts Fair at City Beach.

“We can do all of these things now because we have a cohesive team in place,” Deaner said.

POAC’s relationship with both artists and the business community comes to the fore in events such as Art Walk — which last year included a total of 40 business locations acting as ancillary galleries during its June-September run — and the Arts & Crafts Fair that takes place in August. The group now uses these events and its host of gallery shows, plays, dance performances and concerts to invite a kind of crosstalk with those who create the art and those who make it a part of their lives.

“We’re listening to the community and we’re getting much better about letting people know about what we do for the community,” Deaner said.

“POAC isn’t producing the music and the artwork — we’re sharing it,” said Combs. “Even if you’re not going to become an artist, it opens up your mind to something bigger in the world.

“No matter who you are or what you do; art matters.”

The next installment in the Performance Series will be the Montreal Guitare Trio — a virtuosic classical guitar trio of comprised of Marc Morin, Glenn Levésque, and Sébastien Dufour paying tribute to the great composers of Spanish music, including Paco de Lucia and Manuel de Falla — in their “Danzas” concert next Sun., Feb. 11, at the Panida Theater.

For tickets and information, or to learn more about joining POAC as a volunteer, go online to artinsandpoint.org or call 208-263-6139.