By Winn Duvall
At McLean Project for the Arts, executive director Susan Corrigan is a master of logistics. She manages the three different arms of the organization (exhibits, education and outreach), works with the 38-member board of directors and oversees more than 100 educational programs and approximately 16 shows per year across three exhibition spaces—a job that is arguably more of an art.
Corrigan is a trained artist, having studied fine arts at Carnegie Mellon University, but she believes that the “artist” designation is not specific to a particular talent; everyone has that ability, and it lies in the way we see things and how we perceive the world. At MPA, Corrigan works to infuse the community with experiences that foster those sensibilities and encourage artistic innovation.
How did you get into the nonprofit sector?
Years and years ago when I was beginning to be in filmmaking, we were doing a commercial for a “Star Wars” album. And the thing about people in the video or film business is that they work round the clock. So it was 3:30 in the morning, and we were editing this maybe 30-second commercial, and the director turned to me and said, “Do you want me to cut it here, or do you want me to cut it here?” Now, the perception of that change was very minor. And I sat back and thought to myself, “It’s 3 o’clock in the morning. I’m sitting here deciding which funny face is the best place to cut so that I can sell an album to people. I don’t think that’s what I want to do with the rest of my life.”
What is your core mission?
My primary reason to be here is to make sure that this wonderfully productive organization has a longer life well beyond my being here. So what I’m trying to do is to make sure that the foundation is strong to support the future opportunities that MPA provides to the community so that it will always be here, and it will always be a resource for the community.
One thing we know about art is that it’s always pushing forward the future. So our organization needs to be looking at how [we can] deliver the best possible arts experience to people to make sure that we’re on the cutting edge. That’s why I’m really so very proud of our director of exhibitions [Nancy Sausser], who searches out some of the most forward-thinking, contemporary, groundbreaking artists in this whole region. That’s the kind of thing that I think we need to do as an organization.
What do you feel is MPA’s role in fostering innovation in the local art community?
It’s staying in tune with everybody else; it’s listening to all the other agencies and organizations that are involved in the arts. I’m really looking forward to meeting all my colleagues in the arts community and learning from them, so I think it’s collaboration, in some way. I also think it’s really taking a look back and a look way to the future. We have just such a wonderful opportunity now to be thinking about not just the immediate, which sometimes is what art becomes, but what our legacy is going to be, what it is going to look like.
What would you like to see MPA be at the end of your tenure here?
That it was operating really effectively and efficiently; that it was growing new and innovative programs; that those programs resonated well with the people in the community as well as beyond the community; that the reputation of MPA was global. I think that if we were responsive to the future growth of art effectively and our programs enabled that, and that we were global in our perspective and that we engaged everybody, and people love to come here. I think that that would probably be a fine legacy to leave.
( December 2015 )
