When Karen Mittelman took charge of the Vermont Arts Council in 2017, she said, she was amazed by the depth of the work being done.
“The thing that struck me right away was that I was walking into an already amazing arts community, and that my job was to help nurture it,” Mittelman said.
Nurture it she has: Mittelman has succeeded in creating partnerships with many arts and cultural organizations across the state, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, which had a brutal impact on the arts community.
“In the last two and a half years, we’ve been in triage mode,” Mittelman said.
But soon, fostering those relationships will be someone else’s job. The Vermont Arts Council announced Tuesday that Mittelman plans to leave the job in October, when deputy director Amy Cunningham will take over as interim director. Mittelman plans to focus on her writing.
Mittelman has tried to help Vermont leaders understand how the state’s arts economy is a driver of the economy as a whole, and how investments in arts and cultural programs help support jobs and communities.
Jody Fried, executive director of St. Johnsbury-based Catamount Arts, said he has seen Mittelman’s tireless efforts to further the Vermont arts community and set it up for success.
“In a relatively short period of time, Karen has had a tremendous impact on Vermont that has resulted not just in the dollar investment that came out of the legislative session, but also a new awareness and embrace of the creative sector,” Fried said.
The council helped arts organizations survive the pandemic’s economic effects by working with Vermont Humanities to make good use of the federal funding they received from the CARES Act in the early days of the pandemic. The two organizations spread the money across Vermont’s arts and humanities programs, then did so again with 2021 funding from the American Rescue Plan Act.
Without that support, many businesses in Vermont’s creative sector might well have folded.
Mittelman and the arts council took the time during the pandemic to strategically plan for the future, Fried said. Rather than let the financial strains tear the creative sector down, the council began to look for ways to strengthen the sector and set it up for future success.
Recently, Mittelman played an integral role in securing an additional $9 million in federal aid for arts and cultural organizations throughout Vermont. In her last few months as executive director, Mittelman aims to leave the arts community in the best shape possible.
“We’re facing kind of a financial cliff after Covid,” Mittelman said.
Mittelman said donors are hesitant to give right now, considering the current economic crisis, or they have less to give because they boosted their donations during the pandemic crisis.
Additionally, many people remain hesitant to return to crowded venues, such as museums and theaters, which cuts into ticket revenue that those organizations have relied on in the past.
“We have to figure out how we can partner with other funders, and also the state and private donors, to make sure we get the field through the next couple of difficult years,” Mittelman said.
The Vermont Arts Council has its work cut out for it, but Mittelman said she is confident that the arts community will be in good hands long after she leaves the organization.
