Belinda Tate finds new ways to get people to visit the KIA

When the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts announced that its next director would be Belinda Tate she was said to have demonstrated “the right mix of talent, knowledge and energy.”  

A conversation with Tate brings out all three. The list of people she has met with and plans she is formulating attest to her energy. While she doesn’t like to look back, her experience at Diggs Gallery at Winston-Salem State University was highly acclaimed and show her talent and knowledge.  

The Diggs Gallery under her leadership became recognized as a cultural meeting place where people can celebrate the heritage of their broader community and provides exhibit space dedicated to the art of Africa and the African Diaspora.

What does she want to accomplish as executive director of the KIA?

Second Wave Managing Editor Kathy Jennings sat down to talk with Tate as she was finishing up about 90 days on the job that began Sept. 8. Tate has been meeting a lot of new people, listening to what they want to share, and putting some new initiatives in motion. Here's what she had to say.

Second Wave: What are you most proud of in your career so far?

Belinda Tate: Being here, I guess. Kalamazoo is a wonderful city and the KIA is a wonderful place so I think I’m pretty lucky to have the opportunity to land in such a great spot and being here for the last 90 days it seems better than I had originally anticipated. The community here is very friendly and very open. I’ve found an environment where people are open to change and really committed making an impact in the community so I would say I’m really, really proud to be here. I’m proud of all the things that  I’ve done over the course of my career but I’m a very forward looking person so I don’t spend a whole lot of time recalling them.

SW: What is the best advice you have ever gotten?

BT: Well, at different times of my life different morsels of advice have been helpful, so what’s the best advice always depends on where you are at that particular moment. One piece of advice that I’ve received that I’ve tried to share with others is follow your dreams, follow your passion, follow your heart, be willing to take risks in life, and do what you love. 

SW: Do you have any examples of how you’ve done that?

BT: I started very early on being very independent and traveling abroad as a high school student, so I’ve always followed my heart. I’ve been an adventure seeker in my own way. In my travels, I’ve probably been to 17 different countries. I don’t mind just putting my passport in my pocket and going out there, seeing the world, and finding new people to meet. You know, it’s a beautiful world out there. I try to experience as much of it as possible.

SW: What drew you to Kalamazoo and the KIA in particular, what made you decide that this is the place you wanted to be?  

BT: I was attracted to the KIA because it’s a great institution. It has a phenomenal school, a phenomenal museum, and has very strong educational programs. There was such a strong foundation or history here. I felt that foundation offered a lot of opportunity for me to help shape a bright future for an organization such as this one.

And the people here. I really felt the KIA had a very strong staff, a team of experts that were really passionate about arts and about community in a way that is selfless and authentic and so that was really attractive to me in terms of joining that team here. 

In Kalamazoo I really was impressed me with this city’s commitment to the arts, and to excellence in general, and to its generosity. There is a great Community Foundation here. The Kalamazoo Promise is unique. The Richmond Center at Western is one of the best university arts facilities in the nation. There is a very active theater, and performing arts community here, a great symphony orchestra. All of those things combined really attracted me to Kalamazoo. 

SW: What kind of changes do you see ahead in terms of the relationship between the museum, the school, and the community? 

BT: Several things are before us. We’re really focused on stronger community engagement, reaching more sectors of the Kalamazoo community, but also on being the art center for Southwest Michigan. We think that there are many communities in the region that could become greater participants in what we do. 

We are realigning our resources in the museum education department. We are seeking funding for a new position called Curator of Family Programs. And this will help us align with the community organizations who are devoted to college readiness, particularly as it relates to Kalamazoo Public Schools. 
 
We have a long standing relationship, a productive relationship with KRESA that we are very proud of, but having a dedicated person in the KIA as our advocate for youth and families is very important to us. 

It will facilitate greater alignment in the community and will allow us to have a person whose sole focus is to design programs that pull all the resources across this institution to really meet the needs of families in all sectors of our community. This person will bridge particularly the resources that we have in our art school, the expertise that we have in the museum education department, and the depth in our curatorial department that we have given our dynamic collection of art.  

The second thing we are trying to do is we hope to start a post baccalaureate residency program. We’re about a year away from this initiative. This will offer recent college graduates a studio intensive year to come and take classes in our Kirk Newman Art School and also they would be able to use classroom space as studio space when those classrooms are not being utilized. 

We hope that this will be a gift to Southwest Michigan community and it will make young people more competitive in the creative arts arena because they will have an additional year after the university experience to come here to further hone their skills as professional artists and to also develop their portfolios for MFA programs.

On a broader level, we have extended our hours. On Thursday and Friday evenings we’re now open until 8 p.m. So this gives parents an opportunity to go home, eat dinner, round up the kids, and come out for an evening, a family experience at the KIA. 

Along with that we have a real vibrant series of exhibitions that focus on artists from China, Japan, and Korea, and we know that our young people have to have an appreciation not only of their own culture but of the cultures of others to really be prepared to compete internationally in a rapidly changing world. We feel that these types of exhibitions are critically important for young people here to give them exposure to what’s going on around the world. So we certainly see ourselves as the hub of those kinds of cultural experiences. 

We will be continuing our new Art Detectives Program, that’s a two part initiative that involves storytelling and a hands-on arts project. It’s an initiative that supports literacy as well as the arts. On a recent Saturday we had 75 kids and parents show up for this program. So we want to continue to design the kinds of programs to help parents in the educational process for our community youth.

SW: Artists in the community say the KIA needs to bring all the arts and people together and work to eliminate past friction. How can KIA collaborate with WMU, KVCC and K College on art events?

BT: A few weeks ago we held our first faculty day reception and we think this will be an annual event. We invited area university faculty members to come in to listen to what we feel we have to offer the community but more importantly it was an opportunity for us to listen to them. We had 55 faculty members from the Kirk Newman Art School, KVCC, K-College, Western, Glen Oaks, Albion, and Grand Valley, so it really gave us a broad sense of the range of disciplines and the breadth of university community members who are interested in partnering with us. For me that was an exceptional first step that we hope to continue. 

Working with faculty members is central to our strategy to build our young adult members here at the KIA, which is so important. So we are very enthusiastic about continuing the collaboration with area faculty members. It’s already begun.

SW: Is there a particular style or period of art that you really like? Do you have an affinity to the Old Masters or are you more "contemporary"? The KIA has some gaps in both areas. Which would you pursue filling more vigorously?

BT: My personal tastes in the arts a quite broad. I enjoy the Old Masters as well as contemporary art. I utilize the arts as a way to connect with other people. So I’m always eager to talk about what you’re interested in because you can never bore me. If you’re interested in Old Masters, I like Old Masters, we can talk Old Masters. If you’re interested in landscapes, I like landscapes, so we can talk landscapes. If you’re interested in women artists or local artists or contemporary artists I’m interested in all of those things as well. If you’re interested in Asian, or African, or European...I’m ready to travel. 

By the way, we entertained three folks from Sotheby’s yesterday to have a real important conversation about the art world in general and where we might want to focus our collection to position ourselves longterm within the arts arena. Nothing definitive came out of that meeting but it was a great opportunity for us to not only think locally but nationally and internationally regarding how we continue to make our collection relevant and significant, regionally and beyond. 

They went through the collection, not through our storage area, but through primarily what’s on view, the Lasting Legacy and Double Take exhibitions and we also gave them a sneak preview of Seungmo Park. It’s a first step for me to look critically at the collection that we have and start to formulate a strategy going forward.

SW: Is there a way to raise the profile of local art work?

BT: I am very much in support of local artists. Our school is a great example within the national landscape of how we support local artists. A lot of professional artists not only teach but take classes in our school to broaden their skill level and to further develop their ideas. 

We are looking at some new artist in residency programs, inviting a visiting artist whose focus will be working more closely with our community of local artists. I think there are many ways we in which we can support local artists particularly through our education programs. 

We invite artists to speak about their work during out Art Break series, which is every Tuesday at noon.

For Black HIstory month--this is the first year we are putting a big focus on Black History and Women’s History, in February and March. We’ll be showing a film, Kehinde Wiley, An Economy of Grace. And we’re not just showing the film, we’re inviting a local artist in introduce the film and moderate a Q& A session afterwards to give them an opportunity to also talk about their work or contextualize their work in relation to this artist of international import. Those opportunities are also critically important so that we blend this line so that artists in general are not just categorizing artists on one side of the fence and all the others on the other side, so they are contextualized within a larger community of artists. 

SW: From what you have seen so far, how can we make arts and culture more inclusive in this community?

BT: One of the things we are doing is looking at different ways to celebrate various facets of this community. This community is diverse not only ethnically, but in its philosophies, beliefs and interests. We are really taking a second look at our community, our neighbors, and trying to figure out different ways to touch different people throughout this region. So again, Black History Month programs present an important step in that direction. Our Women’s History Month programs also represent an important step in that direction. 

I like to invite people in. As we invited the faculty to listen to them, we’ve started to invite in other people that represent other segments of the community so that we can listen to them and then utilize our expertise to design programs that will be beneficial, meaningful, relevant, and transformative for them.  

SW: Do you have any thoughts on working with with the economic development folks, and the city and county governments, to create a greater awareness of the huge role the arts play locally?

BT: I’ve only been here 90 days, so I’m not in a position yet to speak to that kind of initiative. We are certainly very interested in working with the economic development folks and city and county government. I have begun to establish some relationships there. They seem to be very supportive of what we do. The Arts Council is also very supportive of what we do, but I even think opportunities like the post baccalaureate residency will contribute to the economic viability of the creative class of this community. Because we are better positioning our young artists to thrive in the arts market in this region through that program. So we are definitely looking for a lot of local enthusiasm and support for such an initiative.

SW: Are you open to changing the format of the Area Show?
 
BT: Let me get through the Area Show first. (Laughs) 

SW: You were born and raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. How do you plan to cope with our northern climate?

BT: The first thing is I am really hoping for a record warm winter. So far in December I think I’m doing well. So when you look outside this winter and it’s 30-plus degrees and sunny, think of me. Because I think I’m the primary one sending out those energy vibes for that sunny weather. I have purchased a brand new mega coat and some pretty serious boots that I hope will suffice. But I am in the market for additional winter gear. And of course I will need to call on the warm hearts and friendliness of my new neighbors to make sure I survive whatever this winter has in store. 

SW: What is your biggest challenge going forward?

BT: Snow. (Laughs.) 

One of the challenges that excites me most is we have a very creative staff and a lot of new initiatives that we want to to implement. So just finding the funding to do some of these things is the challenge. 

SW: What kind of funding are you looking for? Grants? Individual donors. 

BT: All of the above. We have a very supportive community and we are fortunate in the generosity of others. But it’s local patrons, local corporate support, grant funding. All of the above. 

I’m excited. We have met with a lot of people and people have been responding favorably. I’m incredibly confident that people appreciate the creativity or our staff  and will allow them to spread their wings and do some new things for the community.

SW: What didn’t I ask you that you want to make sure people know about.

BT: I want people to know that nationally the KIA is a very unique place--because we have a museum and to have a school--truly in most cases only the largest cities in America have that. Similar institutions would be the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Philadelphia--the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. We have something here that is so unique I want to make sure that people don’t take it for granted. 

One of our exhibitions this winter is Second Sight: Insight. It explores that imaginative intellectual space where art and the literary tradition meet. A group of local poets have created original writings that reflect and express some of the sentiments that they have, it’s art that inspires poetry this time around, sometimes it’s poetry that inspires the the visual arts.

There are so many awesome, inspiring things going here on almost on a daily basis. Come out and enjoy and be a part of these fun and exciting opportunities that we offer. Plus it’s always good to get in touch with your creative side. 

Kathy Jennings is the managing editor of Southwest Michigan's Second Wave. She is a freelance writer and editor.