TV Host, Cartoonist, Artist, Youth Director . . . there isn’t nothing this guy can’t do.
I had to take a double take when I read this;
The Visual Arts Center in Sioux Falls will have a new leader starting next month.
The Washington Pavilion announced Thursday that Jason Folkerts has accepted the position and will start on August 2.
Before joining the staff at the Washington Pavilion, Folkerts graduated from the University of Sioux Falls and worked as a youth pastor for 12 years. He is also a full-time artist and owns his own business that specializes in murals, cartooning, and live art.
Folkerts used to be the editorial cartoonist for the Argus Leader. He was relieved of his duties after a couple of local cartoonists made the newspaper aware that he may have plagiarized a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist. But the AL just couldn’t get enough of Jason’s work so they brought him back, until he was suspected a second time of plagiarizing another international cartoonist (who ironically was the president of an anti-plagiarizing organization). The AL relieved him permanently after that. (You can read all of Jason’s comments about the incident HERE in the comments section of this blog post).
Besides his lack of integrity when it comes to other artists creative property, what baffles me even more is that the Pavilion would hire an individual that doesn’t even have a degree in art, art management, etc. Heck, he doesn’t even have a degree in regular management or business, he is a youth pastor with a seminary degree.
Running a Visual Arts Center isn’t like running summer Bible Camp folks.
I have been told though that the qualifications for the position have been drastically changed since the last director left (it was also changed a little before she took the job).
The Pavilion management and board are apparently losing their freaking minds. There needs to be a National search for an ACTUAL art director with the experience to run such an important division of the Pavilion.
The Lord works in mysterious ways. The business plans for the Pavilion is a history of failure. Perhaps it can work as a ministry.
Pretty sure this place gave up on national searches after Gary Wood tried booking stuff other than Celtic Woman and the fifth touring company of Broadway musicals. Life’s been a lot better for Gary Wood in the last ten or so years than it has been for the Pavilion’s programming or its budget.
Your city – my former city – is often tragically parochial in all the worst ways. So many firsthand examples I could give you from my former employer that shares space in that building.
So of course, it’s better to hire this plagiarizing cartoonist from down the street than someone from some big city somewhere that might tell a semi-bigshot local like Darrin Smith or Larry Toll or the Pavilion board that they’re not doing a very good job of actually fulfilling their mission.
Sioux Falls could do so much better – in so many ways – if only more of its residents actually believed they deserved it.
I met Jason when he was a youth pastor, I attended a Christmas Eve service to watch my mother perform on her violin and upon meeting him he acted like he knew me and every detail of my life though he’d never met me before, he was very friendly and chummy as most youth pastors get, he also had the congregation pray over me as I had recently suffered a severe accident, he hadn’t consulted with me about it, just out of nowhere, mid-service I find myself being demanded to come to the front for prayer. Not a good reflection of how he does business.
Fast-forward 4 years later, I attended a Washington Pavilion Art event with my wife and parents and this man who pulled me in front of his church congregation upon the first time meeting me and making the congregation lay hands on and pray over me, he doesn’t make any effort to even acknowledge my existence. He came to the table I was standing at with my parents and began to chat up my parents and 100% overlooked me, didn’t say hello, wave or anything. For someone who claims to be a man of God and a director of one of the community’s largest art galleries he sure isn’t very keen on making people feel welcome. I guess this reflects on him as a person really. He doesn’t bother to get permission from those he’s using for his little game to make him look good, he doesn’t seem to genuinely care about the citizens of the community and his history so tattered with trouble spells out lack of leadership and potential trouble for anyone who associates with him.