I found the education requirements of the job posting for the VAC director interesting;
Min Education: BA/BS/Undergraduate
Min Experience: 5-7 Years
I could speculate a couple of reasons why they are not requiring much experience and education;
– Doesn’t pay well
– Already have some insider picked to do the job that has some family connection to the Board (that’s how the current curator got picked, rumor has it).
– Easy to control and manipulate a newbie to the industry.
Whoever does get picked for the job, I feel sorry for them. One person runs the show in that building, and if you disagree with them, you can kiss your ass goodbye. If you don’t believe me, just ask them what happened to the last Development Director. Would love to hear ‘the truthful’ answer.
Surely some insiders’ deadbeat in law needs a job.
The rumor on the street is that Wellman (the current marketing person) will get the VAC job. She was the 2nd choice when Merhib got the job. She is connected with Sanford (her husband) and has lots of board connections. I have no problem with promoting from within . . . if they have experience. When is the Pavilion going to realize they will be successful when they have managers that understand the arts industry?
Why don’t they let mmm do the marketing we’d be deeper in debt and he could get Cindy Lou Who I meant Huether to play tennis for a small stipend at the vac. I agree Wellman is a great choice she is a breath of fresh air when I hear her on radio plugging the pavilion.
Ok for starters I have to say that once again you are way off base. There are many things in your short post that are wrong and I will attempt to let you in on the truth.
1. The current curator got her job based off of her merits. This had nothing to do with being family with someone on the Board, which is not tue. That is ridiculous and pretty rude to not believe that she could get the job with her credentials.
2. Sit through an interview for the job and you will see what the true requirements are. They leave it open so that everyone has a chance. Wait until they hire someone, then you can criticize the decision.
3. It has nothing with wanting to control what the Director does. If you had a true understanding for all that happens at the Pavilion you would see that no one wants to have power over everything. Way too much work for one person.
4. Thinking that 1 person has all the power here is ridiculous. If you want to go and throw the old Director of Development in there I would also ask you to ask her if she was ever able to reach the goals set forth in her department. My inside information tells me that her benchmark for success was unfortunately not reached and although she was liked, something had to be done. This happens in all industries.
5. Wellman has already accepted a reduced role as the Director of Public Relations, the job she was initially hired for. Rumor has it she wanted to scale back her role a little.
And on a final note, I once again would love to know who your insider is at the Pavilion. Unfortunately you need a new one, because the information that you are being handed is usually wrong. I bet if you just ask them they would be truthful with you. I have no problems getting truthful answers out of them when I ask. I just choose to do it face to face.
Thanks for the correction about Wellman, it was just a guess on my part. Like I said, nothing wrong with promoting from within. As with the current curator, I speculate on her wealth of knowledge. When I visited the Touleas show, I noticed many paintings were mis-hung (too low) the walls were scuffed and dirty (no repainting was done before exhibit was hung) and there was garbage cans hanging out in the middle of the exhibit. You couldn’t read most of the placards because the printer they used was running out of toner and they were faded. A ‘qualified’ curator would never allow this. It was unprofessional.
As for the development director, you could be right, she was terminated due to poor performance. But I don’t know, because the Pavilion has yet to say ANYTHING about her resignation. The reasons I heard, certainly have nothing to do with performance. And lets just speculate that is why she was let go. Then why leave the spot vacant for a year? If you want a DD that will raise money, you actually NEED someone in that position. Poor performance is one thing, not having one to perform those duties is worse.
I have to agree with L3wis about the quality of the galleries going down. It is impossible to argue quality of artwork, but when the galleries look so bad (labels, lighting, walls, etc…) how can the staff be hired off of merit alone…combine that with the fact that the WPVAC chose to charge admission at about the same time…I stopped being a member, stopped donating, and just plain wont go back until word of mouth compels me