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Leader Profiles
Lauren Johnston
Program Coordinator
New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA)
Boston, Massachusetts
Lauren, over the past couple of years, you have climbed from being a Program Intern to a Program Coordinator at NEFA, a somewhat unique promotion path for arts organizations. What qualities of your positions have contributed to your professional development and personal fulfillment?
There are actually a few of us at NEFA who started first as interns. For me, it was a combination of learning quickly and working with great managers that allowed me to take on additional responsibility. My position is unique in that I have the opportunity to work on programs in almost all programming areas. I am currently supporting public art, Native American art, and regional performing arts touring programs. The breadth of activities is exciting for me because I have the chance to get involved in a little bit of everything. It can be hectic at times, but this mix gives me the chance to make connections with many different people, which is what really drives me. The past Manager of Public Art, Liesel Fenner; and Manager of Presenting and Touring, Adrienne Petrillo, were instrumental in my professional development to this point. Even as an intern I was invited to grant panels, performances, events and meetings of all kinds. Now as a coordinator, I have the opportunity to plan and attend these meetings myself, which has really propelled my professional connections and networking.
You are partnering with Sharon Fantl at the Redfern Arts Center at Keene State College to hold a Creative Conversation on October 24. What are your hopes for this convening?
I started talking about this Creative Conversation after I returned from the Americans for the Arts convention in Las Vegas. I was feeling inspired and spent some time in the Emerging Leaders section of the Americans for the Arts website where I read up on Creative Conversations in 2006. I was completely disappointed to see that only two conversations happened in New England last year. That same week, I attended an annual meeting for the Arts Presenters of Northern New England (APNNE), one of the New England presenter consortia, and got to talking with Sharon about emerging leader issues in the presenting field. Because NEFA’s grant programs serve the field, I knew that many presenters in our region are small shops and may not have colleagues that fit directly into this category. So our hope is to gather emerging leaders in education, events, marketing, and box office departments that might pursue presenting as a career. Our Creative Conversation will center around a discussion on career paths and professional development needs for this niche in the arts.
It seems that professional development is an important aspect to your work. Why is this?
Something that I find unique about myself in comparison to other Emerging Leaders is that I always knew I wanted to be an arts administrator. It seems that many of my colleagues and others in the field have sort of “fallen into” it. Due to that model, I found very few support systems and resources around charting a career in the arts. So this void is where my interest in professional development for Emerging Leaders comes from.
In addition to the Creative Conversation I’m planning in October, I am also in the planning stages of addressing Emerging Leader representation at the National Performing Arts Conference in Denver in June, 2008. Just recently I’ve become involved with reviving a group of Boston Young Arts Professionals as well. I guess you could say that planning professional development opportunities is really just the mechanism I use to help others. It’s the through-line between my personal and professional life.
