The arts are back.
Not that they really left.
What had been organized as CREATE Schoharie County under the Greene County Council of the Arts is now Schoharie County Arts, a change intended to bring a laser-sharp focus on local art and artists, even as both are defined broadly.
Greene County will continue administering New York State Council on the Arts grants here, leaving SCA’s Anne Morton, Lisa Ovitt and others free to move ahead with the work they began in 2019 before COVID put nearly everything on hold.
The group’s filed incorporation papers with the State of New York, putting it one step closer to 501C3 not-profit-status, essential for the kind of fundraising SCA plans to do.
“Arts are so critical to Schoharie County and we have so many artists here,” many of them flying under the radar, Ms. Morton, SCA treasurer said.
“We want to be able to support and promote them and bring in artists and programming,” she said. “The arts can have a real economic benefit and with everything that we lost last year, I think everyone realized how much we all missed them.”
The arts include everything, Ms. Ovitt, SCA president said: music, theater, exhibits, visual arts and even technology—the last something that wasn’t really on anyone’s radar just a few years ago.
This summer and fall, SCA members will be at a few local festivals and events, getting their name out there and soliciting members.
More information is available on their Facebook page, Schoharie County Arts or by emailing SchoharieCountyArrts@gmail.com.
2022 will be the year they get up to full speed, Ms. Ovitt said, with not only their own events but the fundraisers and fund-drive necessary to finance them.
They’ll also continue to work with CREATE and the county’s tourism arm, Destination Marketing, Ms. Norton said, as well as with SEEC.
“They’re all related,” she said. “Arts promote tourism and the economy. When the Hall of Fame holds induction and thousands of people pour into Otsego County, we need to plan events here as well.”
According to SCA’s mission statement, the group’s goal is “To broaden and enrich the quality of life in Schoharie County by developing and strengthening the arts through promoting cultural and arts-related activities, educating the public, advancing individual artists and arts organizations, and utilizing arts-related technology while contributing to the cultural and economic growth in the county.”
Board members are: President Lisa Ovitt, Treasurer Anne Morton, Secretary Christine Harris and Catherine Adams, Christina Hanks, Cornelia McGiver, Jennifer Mosher, Dennis Shaw, and Georgia VanDyke.