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Young benefactors are museums' future hope

Though supporters are traditionally older, young adult groups are gathering the arts minded around Tampa Bay.

By MARY JANE PARK
Published July 4, 2005

	[Times photo: Chris Zuppa]
	Clearwater residents Jamie Sandvold, left, and Sarah Jeewa enjoy the view from the Tampa Club while at an Avant Garde Young Professionals social.

ST. PETERSBURG - The Lightning? In lockout.

The Bucs? Super Bowl 2009 in Tampa is a few years down the road.

The Devil Rays? Headed to the World Series only in fantasy.

Striving to develop a robust future for the Tampa Bay area, business and civic leaders long have focused largely on professional sports.

These days, culture also has cachet, as cities try to shake their fusty images and attract young, imaginative types.

"Cultural institutions are major contributors to the economic vitality of the community," said Ann Wykell, St. Petersburg's manager of cultural affairs.

Museums and performing arts groups are key building blocks. Municipal leaders link St. Petersburg's downtown revival to a burgeoning creative community. Tampa, hoping to wake its own slumbering business center, is pinning its hopes on a new arts district.

But it takes money to make money. And much of the financial fuel for cultural institutions comes from wealthy patrons well beyond the age of 50 - a sign that a revival could be short-lived unless younger people get involved.

To that end, groups such as Tampa Bay Verve and Creative TampaBay Inc. have organized in recent years, hoping to attract - and keep - cultural-minded young adults in the bay area. The Tampa Theatre's Balcony Club, the Gulf Coast Museum of Art's Les Fauves and other similar organizations feed into that plan. Some are independent entities; some are affiliated with more traditional establishments, such as the local museums their fundraisers benefit.

The savvy among them encourage networking and offer financial support for parent institutions. The hope is that the young guns eventually will make tons of money and pour it into the arts.

Officials are reluctant to discuss dollar amounts generated by such groups, because they are not as substantial as those of people and corporations with deep pockets.

"They are priceless" in terms of generating interest and enlarging bases of support, said Steve Klindt, the Tampa Museum of Art's director of development.

Richard Florida, the oft-quoted Carnegie Mellon professor who wrote The Rise of the Creative Class, says metropolitan areas that hope to flourish need youthful energy, buzz and ideas.

All were evident at a recent martini party the Salvador Dali Museum's Zodiac Group hosted in the Bank, a St. Petersburg club. Guests paid between $25 and $45 to get in; the money went to food, drinks and a donation to the museum.

Revelers, diverse in age and ethnicity, defied stubborn stereotypes of the Sunshine City, which has struggled to shed its reputation as old and racist.

"Can you believe it?" asked Joe Mazzara, 47, a past president of the Zodiacs. "I mean, I'm pinching myself," he said, looking at the young swells, who numbered more than 200.

"This is St. Pete."

A few nights earlier, Mazzara was at the Tampa Club, where the Tampa Museum of Art's Avant Garde young adult group organized a program that focused on collecting.

Chris Fraser, who heads the Zodiacs, got involved after he moved back to his hometown from Atlanta. He was "trying to plug back into what was going on in St. Pete," and his mother gave him a Zodiac membership for Christmas.

Fraser, 36, a consulting manager with Cherry, Bekaert & Holland, said he started going to Zodiac parties, renewing old contacts and making new friends.

In addition to the social aspects of his membership, Fraser said, "I've actually been glad to learn more about the Dali and what a gem it really is. It's one of the best collections in the country."

And it's close by. "Living in Atlanta, you drive 60 miles to go anywhere," he said.

Melissa Rutland, 26, helped start the Contemporaries at the Museum of Fine Arts in 2002 and leads its core group. She grew up going to the museum and committed to it as a young adult because of her family's involvement.

A part owner of Rutland Northeast Storage, she also supervises some family rental properties.

"I think that what we hope to accomplish with the Contemporaries is to have younger people involved in the museum," Rutland said. "It generally serves an older crowd. I think that we're just trying to change that perspective."

Rutland said she has learned from her paternal grandmother, Ardith Rutland, who developed a core group of friends through community involvement and volunteerism.

Groups like the Contemporaries are "a base to intermingle and keep in touch," she said. "I hope we can teach the younger people a thing or two once we've done this for a while."

"We all really have the same ideals, to try and get this area to be a better place to live and play in."

"It's early cultivation," said Simone Bennett, a development assistant with the Museum of Fine Arts who is active in the Contemporaries and the Zodiacs. "It's opening up the museum. We're trying to show (young professionals) how fun it is, what a great collection it is."

Bennett, 30, moved to the bay area from Las Vegas about five years ago and is working toward a bachelor's degree in art history.

"I fell in love with St. Petersburg," she said. "I thought, this is just a wonderful community."

She has helped to organize events for both groups and supports other cultural organizations geared toward young professionals.

Tickets for those parties, usually $25 and up, appeal to young adults who "have a genuine interest in the arts and are somewhat giving," Bennett said. "So it's $25 to get in. Guess what? The net proceeds are going back to a charity, and you would spend that amount of money going out anyway. It's such a good value. It's the best deal in town."

Wykell, St. Petersburg's cultural affairs manager, would like to see further innovations.

"Young adults are also young parents," she said, encouraging family-friendly programming as another way to broaden the audience.

In the long run, she said, arts groups must change even more in order to reach new audiences.

"I think these young groups are the beginning," she said, "but i don't think they're the end of that process."

[Last modified July 4, 2005, 04:59:30]