We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Diana Blanchard Gross. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Diana below.

Diana, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

For the past year, I have worked as the Visual Arts Center Manager at the Charles H. Taylor Visual Arts Center. We host a number of juried exhibitions as well as curated exhibitions. During my tenure, I have tried to increase our presence in Coastal Virginia. We coordinate art class sessions, four per year, with diverse offerings for students. Classes have included watercolor, oil and acrylic painting, drawing, fiber, photography, jewelry, recycled art, calligraphy, monotypes, felting anime and manga drawing. These classes for adults and children are offered during the morning, afternoon and evening to work with student’s schedule. By increasing our offerings, we hope to encourage students of all ages to enhance their creativity. We have also presented various events during the year to boost the arts in this year. We presented a Holiday Fine Arts Bazaar where artists displayed their works in an effort to provide an opportunity for the public to purchase these artworks for holiday giving. Due to the popularity of this event, we will be presenting it again. Another event, we coordinated was the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos). The event included many components from an alter (ofrenda) presentation, youth art activities, face painting, and craft demonstration. We reached our Hispanic community and look to continue to build on our success. Through our exhibitions, art classes, and events, we have reached more of our community and increase our visitor participation by 62%. This has been my most meaningful project.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I began my adventure into the arts and museums with my parents encouraging my pursuits. At the time, we visited the Smithsonian Museums and fueled my love for history and museums. I started to study history as an undergraduate but then realized that I also enjoyed the arts thus began my career in art history. After earning my Master’s degree in Art History and Museum Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University, one of the top art schools in Virginia. After graduation, I began my career as a Curator for numerous art centers as well as curating independent exhibitions. All of this has lead to helping to encourage the public on how valuable the arts are to our society and life, in general.

Have you ever had to pivot?

During my career, I have had times when I was not working full time. I have had to pivot to rely on my business colleagues and friends to keep involved in arts field. I began my own independent curatorial business and starting working on projects within my schedule. When I started back working full time, I continued with my independent projects but on a smaller scale.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My professional and personal mission are to encourage more arts within our society. So often we have lessened the impact of the arts on our lives but they play such a large part of our society. The creative arts have so much to offer not only our children but also adults. The arts provides a platform to voice our feelings, thoughts, and identities. The arts can communicate information, shape our everyday lives, make a social statement and be enjoyed for aesthetic beauty. Many within our society fail to see the important of the arts and thus are dismissive of their impact upon people of all ages. I hope to encourage more individuals to get involved within the arts.

Contact Info:

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