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Culture sculptor

Tampa had mosquitoes - and an arts-loving mayor. The latter lured a Seattleite to head the burgeoning arts scene.

DOWNTOWN - She didn't want to leave Seattle, but the recruiter pressed about the positive points of Tampa: the economic upswing, the new mayor and diversity.

"Hmmm," said Wendy Ceccherelli, who headed art councils in Seattle, Sacramento, Calif., and Savannah, Ga. "Tampa."

Her first thought: "Sunny."

"It seemed to me Tampa was a place where people came from all over," she said. "That's important to me. I'm a transient."

Her interview for the city's arts and cultural affairs director spot was on Feb. 16, the same day President Bush rolled into town to talk jobs at a Tampa manufacturing plant.

He stayed at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Tampa. So did Ceccherelli.

She remembers the police cruisers around the hotel and thinking: "There must be something about Tampa I don't know."

Then, a hotel worker divulged that the president was there.

Ceccherelli secured her job that day, after meeting with Mayor Pam Iorio and taking a tour of city projects.

Ceccherelli, 48, began work March 29. Iorio created her position and department to help implement some of the arts projects started by former Mayor Dick Greco. Under Ceccherelli's wing: the Tampa Museum of Art. Redesigned by Rafael Vinoly, it is scheduled to break ground this year. She realizes she has work to do. Fundraising has been slow, and Vinoly's design has met controversy.

"Definitely there are some big challenges with that museum," she said.

Her job is to make sure the doors open and it operates in the black. She will have input in the development of the surrounding park. "Is there a need for more shade? Is there a need for an amphitheater? How do you create a park environment that is a destination?" she said.

She knows it's not a new concept.

"I think people have talked about these ideas for many, many years and I am reminded of that frequently by people I meet," she said during lunch recently at the Hyatt. "My strength is making things happen."

The daughter of a salesman who requested transfers often, Ceccherelli lived in a new place every four years: Pennsylvania, Chicago, Memphis. She spent her high school years in upstate New York, where she loved drawing and painting. At her hometown college, State University of New York at Binghamton, she majored in studio art and wanted to be an artist. During her last year at college, SUNY added a graduate program at Binghamton - a master's degree in nonprofit administration.

"I really didn't know what arts administration was, but it sound like something that would put food on the table," she said. "That was very important to me, being independent."

Her first job was at a gallery in Goldsboro, N.C.

Next, in 1980, she moved to Savannah to become the city's first cultural affairs director. She helped launch River Festival.

"The river was an untapped resource and the city knew it," she said.

Ceccherelli persuaded the city ballet and symphony to perform near the waterfront, and the city set a budget for concerts and services. The public paid nothing.

The city's budget was big. Savannah had about 140,000 residents and was spending about $300,000 a year for the arts, about $2 per person. Today, the festival concerts draw 100,000 visitors.

In 1985, Ceccherelli moved to Sacramento to head the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission. She tripled public funding for grants to more than $600,000 annually and got $200,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts for local programs, she said.

Her Sacramento experience focused on building downtown. She helped establish a farmers' market and lunchtime concert series in the city center.

In 1992, she moved to Seattle and worked in Mayor Norm Rice's administration. She was executive director of the Seattle Arts Commission (1992-1999), which had an annual budget of more than $2-million. The commission oversaw and supported the city's arts community, developing cultural programs and providing financial support for artists and arts organizations.

"I found her to be somebody who is energetic, innovative and a visionary," said Rice in a telephone interview from Seattle, where he is now president of Federal Home Loan Bank. "She has a strong sense of what cultural diversity means in a city and she understands the arts from A to Z."

Colleagues call her a true arts advocate.

Ricardo Frazer, who worked with Ceccherelli on the commission, said he was an outsider to the arts scene before he met her. Ceccherelli showed him around and introduced him to key people.

"She plugged me in," said Frazer, who is still on the commission.

After Rice left office, Ceccherelli worked under the administration of Paul Schell, a former developer.

She proposed a $2-million hike in arts spending. Schell suggested about $20,000, Ceccherelli said. She wanted to increase spending on the arts community. He wanted to set aside money for neighborhood projects.

"He and I were not on the same page on where we wanted the arts in the community to go," she said.

She moved to the parks department in 2000 to organize the department's art programs. Two years later, the city eliminated the position. Ceccherelli, who had some 25 years of experience in municipal government, was laid off.

For a while, she advised nonprofit groups on her own. But she was still looking for "the right fit."

Then a recruiter called about Tampa.

The city had hired an executive search firm to look for top players in the arts. Ceccherelli's name came up. In December, she picked up the phone.

Being an outdoors person, she knew there were drawbacks. "Florida has no mountains, no snow," she said. "It's hot. It has mosquitoes."

But what sold her was Iorio, who was emphasizing the arts with a new department.

"That got me," she said. "That was the hook."

She oversees the city's public art program, steered by administrator Robin Nigh, and Paul Wilborn, creative industries manager, whose task is to raise the city's arts profile. Her immediate focus will be the museum, she said.

But for now, she's settling in, house hunting in Palma Ceia and meeting Tampa's art community. She plans to speak at the Brad Cooper Gallery on May 5.

"This is a community on the verge of making great things happen," she said.

- Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Babita Persaud can be reached at 226-3322 or persaud@sptimes.com

Wendy Ceccherelli, the city's new director of arts and cultural affairs, will speak at a Creative TampaBay meeting at 6 p.m. May 5 at the Brad Cooper Gallery, 1712 E Seventh Ave., Ybor City. Call 248-6098 or visit www.creativetampabay.com

AGE: 48

TITLE: Tampa's arts and cultural affairs director.

HOBBIES: Backpacking, kayaking, outdoor running, cross-country skiing, ballooning.

HUSBAND: Tom Hamilton, a desktop publishing pioneer and former helicopter pilot in Vietnam, who became hooked on ballooning. He launched Balloon Life magazine in 1986 and has been interviewed by Walter Cronkite, Jim Lehrer and National Public Radio.

CHILDREN: Daughter is an Oklahoma State University sophomore; son is a seventh-grader.

TOP MAGAZINE: National Geographic Adventure Magazine.

TOP RECENT READ: Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement, Congressman John Lewis' autobiography.

FAVORITE MUSIC: Jazz. "I really didn't get into Seattle popular culture."

VIEW ON VINOLY'S DESIGN: "It will be an architecturally important piece for Tampa."

DEGREES: Bachelor's degree in studio art and master's in nonprofit administration, both from State University of New York, Binghamton.

SALARY: $102,000.