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By ROBERT BAXTER
Courier-Post Staff
Molly Sasse has a success story to tell and the Business/ Arts Summit is giving her the chance to share it.
Sasse directs the Allied Arts of Greater Chattanooga, which for three years has received the most contributions in the nation per capita for a united arts fund. As a result, Allied Arts is showering more than $1.6 million on Chattanooga's cultural groups this year.
Sasse led Allied Arts through the first cultural action plan undertaken by a city in Tennessee. Under her leadership, Allied Arts has expanded its programs to include arts education and folk arts.
"The arts have become a major player in Chattanooga," explains Sasse. "We have played a key role in the revitalization of the city."
Arts and business leaders attending the April 26 Regional Business/Arts Summit at the South Jersey Performing Arts Center on Camden's Waterfront will be listening to Sasse and other panelists with interest.
Sasse sees similarities between Chattanooga and Camden. Both cities have riverfronts and both passed through an economic downturn in the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, both have opened aquariums.
Chattanooga, Sasse quickly points out, has a record Camden and other South Jersey communities cannot match. The city of 150,000 has a long tradition of individual, corporate and foundation giving.
Finding ways to generate increased financial support for arts groups ranks as one of the summit's priorities. Six panelists will show how it's done:
•Mary Karr, director of community relations for National Cash Register, will tell how her company supports the arts and outline some of the projects that have revitalized the downtown area of Dayton, Ohio.
•Mary Louise Fazzano will show how her New York-based consulting firm, Changing Our World, assists nonprofit and corporate clients in increasing support for the arts.
•Robert Krumbine, vice president of programs and events at Center City Partners, will share how businesses in Charlotte, N.C., banded together to turn the arts into a driving force in the city's economic vitality.
•Barbara Rambo, director of New Jersey Grantmakers in Trenton, will show how philanthropy is good business for businesses.
•James Kellogg of the Community Foundation of New Jersey, based in Morristown, will show how community foundations benefit both the arts and business communities.
•Dorothy Ryall of the Cultural Council of Richland and Lexington counties in South Carolina, will talk about the Palmetto Tree Project, a public art project that has united businesses and artists.
Ryall has a simple philosophy.
"I'm wide open for for for opportunity," she says. "If an opportunity runs through my door, I'm going to catch it."
Three years ago, Ryall seized the opportunity as soon as advertising executive Marvin Chernoff suggested the local cultural council should try to duplicate Cows on Parade, an outdoor arts program that filled Chicago's public spaces with bovine sculptures. Ryall had just seen the cow sculptures during a visit to Chicago and immediately embraced the idea.
Chernoff suggested the cows be replaced by South Carolina' s state tree, the palmetto. He recommended the trees be made of steel because he was sure Ryall could find a company that would donate the material.
The Palmetto Project, the largest public art project ever installed in South Carolina's Midlands area, was created in a flash. Within days, Ryall secured steel from Chatham Steel.
Artists submitted their ideas for decorating the steel trees. Almost 100 businesses lined up to pay $1,000 to compensate the artists for their work.
Within months, 89 trees were installed and put on public display. Then they were auctioned off. After giving the artists a 10 percent commission, Ryall had $216,000 left to support the Cultural Council's public arts program.
"The Palmetto Project was a wonderful thing for our whole community," notes Ryall. "The businesses won. The artists won. And the community won."
The project attracted widespread attention throughout South Carolina's Midlands. Senior citizens arranged tours around the trees. Scouts spent their weekend retreats among the palmetto trees. Even the Diabetes Association arranged a run on the path leading past the trees.
"The Palmetto Tree Project encouraged networking and formed relationships that are still vital and productive," Ryall said. She is already at work on another project featuring doors from a housing project that will be decorated by artists.
"We went with a dream," Ryall said. "We put wings on it and made it fly. Now we're doing it again."
