"The Cultural Affairs Commission's mission is to foster innovative programming and services as a means of increasing the diversity and the quality of available artistic, cultural, and historical offerings, of raising the community's awareness of the benefits gained from such programs, and of ensuring that those sectors are used to enrich the quality of life within the City of Savannah."
— SavannahGA.gov, the City of Savannah's website
Many of you have likely heard of the Cultural Affairs Commission (CAC for short). Some of you probably even have some vague idea of what it does. But I suspect most of you are like I was until a couple of years ago, having basically no idea how the above definition works in practice. I knew that it was made up of local citizens, but other than that?
“The [Mission Statement] is great for public consumption,” said CAC Chairperson Patrick Kelsey. “But there are four responsibilities that we have in our by-laws that are not so wordy.”
During this week’s episode of Art on the Air, Kelsey went into detail about just what those responsibilities were.
The first two have to do with funding: CAC is tasked with making recommendations to City Council to allocate a portion of the yearly budget to the Arts and Culture Enrichment (or ACE) program, which generally encompasses larger organizations like Deep Center, Savannah Music Festival, and Loop It Up, as well as smaller programs and events through the Weave-A-Dream program, which in 2021 included events like Whale Week and The Love & Soul Family Festival.
Credit: Photo provided by the Savannah Music Festival
Credit: Photo provided by the Savannah Music Festival
“The funding that [City Council] now provides by way of the ACE funding program [as well as through Weave-A-Dream]…is now funding the free programs for the community,” Kelsey explained. “So everything that is funded, it’s being provided to the taxpayers that are putting in the money for all this stuff. It’s being given back to them.”
Beyond helping to dole out cash, the Cultural Affairs Commission works through one of its four subcommittees (divided into City Priorities, Public Art, Youth Advisory, and the Weave-A-Dream Initiative) to accomplish specific goals.
“The committees [are] trying to find something that they could bring back or kind of focus in on to introduce to the entire commission,” he said. This could be creating a new public arts funding ordinance to ultimately be reviewed by the city, as was the case in the most recent CAC meeting, or finding ways to involve more young people in the various artistic and cultural activities that the city has to offer (an ongoing discussion amongst the commission’s members).
“The subcommittees are focused on something a bit more specialized,” he added. But to Kelsey, perhaps the most important role that the Cultural Affairs Commission has is to act as a consultative board to the powers that be.
Credit: Courtesy of Patrick Kelsey
Credit: Courtesy of Patrick Kelsey
“The city’s already completed their Recreation Re-iMAGINED [initiative], largely to do with outdoor activities, with a little bit of art and culture thrown in for good mix,” he related. “But now, out of that, they’re going to begin a more detailed master plan, if you will, focusing in on, or with emphasis on, arts and culture.
“I think the best point you’ll see in the bylaws is to identify and promote the needs. So, let’s do that. Let’s identify what the community needs, whether it be the individual or the organizations, and serve as the advisors to city council.”
Kelsey is perhaps the perfect person to lead this effort by our citizen-run arts and culture board.
Openly admitting that he couldn’t draw, act, or play any instruments well, he realized early on that he had a different set of skills that could prove useful to helping to grow the arts, a field he loved in spite of his lack of on-stage proficiency. In 5th or 6th grade, when forced to participate in a yearly theatre event at his school, he asked Mrs. Runyan if he could instead work behind the scenes. He quickly realized how much he enjoyed helping others succeed in their artistic endeavors.
“That’s kind of the person that I am,” said Kelsey. “I like to help guide things.”
Credit: Courtesy of Patrick Kelsey
Credit: Courtesy of Patrick Kelsey
In high school, he was lucky enough to find someone to continue to stoke his passion as a theatre manager in Mr. Jones, one of the band teachers. And by the time he graduated, he’d found a job working at a dinner theatre.
“I wanted to find a place in order to support artists,” he said. “And that’s kind of where I fell in. I fell into the administration and management aspects of this.”
As an undergraduate student at Ball State University, he ended up creating his own program of study by majoring in technical theatre as well as entrepreneurship and Small Business Management. After completing a Theatre Management and Producing graduate program at Columbia, he went on to have stops at the famous Lyric Theatre in New York City and, later, as Managing Director for the Irish Repertory Theatre.
Eventually, he was hired by SCAD to teach in their Art Administration program, a precursor to their Creative Business Leadership program, and his journey as an arts and culture advocate really began. But it was a few years later, in 2016, when then City Manager Rob Hernandez attempted to cut the arts budget, an attempt that filled council chambers with angry artists voicing their displeasure, that he decided to take a more active role in the local community.
Noting that it was a collection of passionate individuals rather than a unified voice that gathered at City Hall that day, Kelsey decided to found The Arts and Culture Alliance of Chatham County (ACACC) in order to better unify the various pillars of the creative community.
Credit: Richard Burkhart, Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News
Credit: Richard Burkhart, Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News
“[I’m] trying to pull folks together to have kind of a singular voice whenever needed,” he said. “And trying to have something of a dialogue between these various parties.
“There’s no connectivity between them and so I kind of try to consider myself to be the glue, so there is one direction for all of these disciplines.”
Beyond his work with ACACC, Kelsey also lobbies representatives about art-related matters at the state level through his work as President and CEO of Georgians for the Arts. Recently they’ve made progress towards adding an option to Georgia taxpayers to donate a portion of their returns to support the arts, and he helped to have the city, the county, and the state of Georgia declare this past October as Arts and Humanities Month.
All of these experiences have lead the longtime advocate to be well equipped to guide the Cultural Affairs Commission as their Chairperson, where he was recently elected to a second term in a unanimous vote. As Savannah moves towards a potentially important moment in its arts and culture future, it will need someone like Kelsey to help guide it.
“Hopefully…the commission will have a nice strong role with the development of the master plan, and the city [will leverage] the commission to reach to the community and listen to what they want, instead of handing it over to the consultants. Using us to do what we were there and meant to do,” he opined. “We were appointed in these roles, so let use fulfill the roles I their entirety.”
“If anybody wants to get on the advocacy bandwagon, and help to influence public policy,” he added, “[I’m] happy for the help.”
You can connect with Kesley at chathamartsandculture.com/ and georgiansforthearts.org/.
Art off the Air is a companion piece to the radio program “Art on the Air” hosted by Rob Hessler and Gretchen Hilmers. The column can also be found at savannahnow.com/entertainment.
The show airs Wednesdays from 3-4pm on WRUU 107.5 FM Savannah and at WRUU.org.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Cultural Affairs Commission chairperson Patrick Kelsey says he's 'the glue' for Savannah artists
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