2023-2026 Strategic Plan
Over six months in 2022, the Fine Arts Work Center engaged more than 100 stakeholders in a community-driven strategic planning process that included surveys, group conversations, and one-on-one interviews. We are pleased to share the outcome of this dedicated effort to create the organization’s first written, multi-year strategic plan. This plan refines our mission, articulates a vision and set of organizational values, and outlines our core priorities and goals for the next four years.
Vision / What we aspire to
Nurture artists. Shape our culture.
Mission / Who we serve and why
The Fine Arts Work Center is an artist-led organization based in Provincetown and connected to the world. We support artistic freedom, nurture creative connections, and make possible artistic achievements important to the larger culture.
Freedom
We believe that providing artists with the freedom of time and space to focus on artistic practice within the beautiful natural environment of Outer Cape Cod creates an expansive sense of possibility and leads to creative transformation.
Rigor
We value excellence and believe in artistically significant work. Our community continually shapes and reshapes important conversations about arts and letters.
Responsiveness
We strive to create a welcoming and generative environment supportive of artists. By providing individuals the resources they need to thrive, we hope to enrich people’s intellectual, artistic, and aesthetic lives.
Inclusion
We believe that a diversity of voices strengthens our public discourse and that this leads to cultural vibrancy. We work to evolve as an organization that honors our legacy while repairing historic inequities.
Stewardship and Care
We are committed to the mindful stewardship of our natural, human, financial, and physical resources.
Pillar 1: Serving Artists and Writers
Goal
To ensure that creativity and innovation thrive by building on FAWC’s legacy as an
institution in which artists and writers are responsible for core aspects of decision making
and programming.
Read Our Objectives | Learn About Our Access Fund
Pillar 2: Work That Matters
Goal
To invest in artistic practice and the emergence of new creative directions within
visual arts and writing.
Pillar 3: Creative Connections
Goal
To increase access and foster creative connections that span artistic disciplines, skill
levels, backgrounds, generations, abilities, and locations.
Pillar 4: Place - Provincetown and Outer Cape Cod
Goal
To preserve the artistic vitality of our community and work to protect access to the
natural environment of Provincetown and Outer Cape Cod for future generations of
emerging artists and writers.
Pillar 5: Adaptability
Goal
To create an adaptive institution that thrives for the next half century, rooted in the
protected natural beauty of Outer Cape Cod.
We will ensure a quarterly review of strategic planning objectives and progress, and provide the necessary updates needed to reflect changes in climate or culture.
Below are key themes identified from our six month focus on developing a community-driven strategic plan:
Legacy
The Fine Arts Work Center has a rich history rooted in strong founding visions and ideals. Our legacy is innovation.
Entrusting Artists
We are an artist-led institution that entrusts artists with time, space, and resources.
Provincetown
How can Provincetown continue to incubate creative movements and support new ideas?
Lasting Relationships
Lifelong creative connections are forged here.
Homecoming
The Fine Arts Work Center is an organization and a place that artists and writers return to again and again.
Greater Diversity and Inclusivity
Engaging a more diverse community of artists, writers, students, audiences, and staff will further efforts to create a more inclusive society.
Future Generations
To further our legacy, we must identify and support the next generation of creative practitioners and leaders.
Read about the full process in our Methodology
Participants
Strategic Plan Committee
Neal Balkowitsch and Lynne Kortenhaus, Co-Chairs
Kirsten Andersen
Naya Bricher
Bruce Skiles Danzer, Jr.
Major Jackson
Gavin Kennedy
Sandi McKinley
Sharon Polli
Bryan Rafanelli
Duane Slick
James Everett Stanley
Carol Warshawsky
Sara Siegel, Staff Project Management
Community Advisory Committee
Caroline Black
Program Director, Pollock-Krasner Foundation
Cathy Claman
President, Stephen and Palmina Pace Foundation
Matthew H. Cole
President and CEO, Cape Associates
Michael Fernon
Investment Advisor, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management
Tatiana Gómez Gaggero
Principal, Counterform Community Design Studio
Michael Gillane
Visual Art, The Provincetown International Baccalaureate Schools
Aziz Isham
Executive Director, Twenty Summers
Paul Kelly
Artist | Provincetown Cultural Council
Christine McCarthy
Chief Executive Officer, Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM)
José R. Menéndez
Principal, Counterform Community Design Studio
Cherie Mittenthal
Executive Artistic Director, Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill
Trevor Pittinger
Associate Director, Provincetown Business Guild
Katy Rogers
Programs Director and Director of the Robert Motherwell Catalogue Raisonné Project, Dedalus Foundation
Jill Stauffer
Executive Director, The Provincetown Commons
Sam Tager
Executive Director, Provincetown Public Art Foundation
Julie Wake
Executive Director, Arts Foundation of Cape Cod
Dawn Walsh
Executive Director, The Lily House
Sarah Workneh
Co-Director, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
Interview Participants
James Bennette
Lucinda Bliss
Dr. Mary K. Grant
Lydia Hicks
Beth McCabe
Terrence Meck
Dr. Lise Motherwell
Margaret Murphy
Hunter O’Hanion
Patrick Phillips
Salvatore Scibona
Porter Shreve
Workgroup Participants
Mark Adams
Dr. Shastri Akella
Ellen Akimoto
Dean Albarelli
Wilder Alison
Elissa Altman
Kirsten Andersen
Neal Balkowitsch
Susan Blood
Naya Bricher
Widline Cadet
Kate Clark
Laura Cresté
Esteban del Valle
Joanne Dugan
Breon Dunigan
S. Emsaki
Nick Fagan
Elizabeth Flood
Tracy Fuad
Daniel Heyman
Pete Hocking
Sterling HolyWhiteMountain
Elliott Hundley
Janelle Iglesias
Mala Iqbal
Lavaughan Jenkins
Tyehimba Jess
Patricia Jones
Gavin Kennedy
Celeste Lecesne
Fred Leebron
Fred Liang
Gabriel Louis
Eduardo Martinez-Leyva
Cleopatra Mathis
Sandi McKinley
Andrew Meredith
Sarah Messer
Andrew Mockler
Susanna Neuhaus-Schuck
Matthew Neill Null
Tom Pappas
Jim Peters
Lamar Peterson
Janice Redman
Douglas Ritter
David Rivard
Federico Roa
Mira Schor
Asako Serizawa
Samyak Shertok
Sara Siegel
John Skoyles
James Everett Stanley
Vicky Tomakyo
Carol Warshawsky
Geordon West
Bert Yarborough
Special thanks to our planning partners
Arts Consulting Group
Dr. Bruce D. Thibodeau, President
Nagham Wehbe, Vice President
Shawn D. Ingram, Vice President
Calida N. Jones, Vice President