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She said that she doesn’t recall El Dorado being as “artsy and cool as it is now,” but she does acknowl- edge that the arts center has become an epicenter for the arts in town, south Arkansas and beyond.
“What we do have we use, recycle, value up ... Figuring all that out is part of the creative process,” Means said. “Since college, whatever my jobs – they always have had a creative aspect to them but I never dreamed that I would find a job like this in El Dorado. I feel very blessed.”
The arts center’s marketing director’s community service through the SAAC also includes collaborating with local artists to expand residents’ art collections and working with local churches on projects, she said. The most fulfilling thing about her work at SAAC, perhaps, is reaching “many cross sections of the com- munity” through a common love for art.
“I do think there are other people who do bigger and better things. You know they feed the poor and rescue the oppressed,” she said. “Those are very big and very important, but I get the op- portunity to work across the spectrum and
touch a lot of people in this community.”
The SAAC marketing director said that “you really have to have a servant’s heart to be in the arts.” Her favorite project isn’t even
an arts center production. It’s HOPE Landing’s annual talent show hosted at the arts
center.
“Really I’m just a
facilitator to help them
use the building but it’s
amazing how they deal with
the kids and I get to see those kids perform, watch them coming back year after year and grow up,” she said.
Means’ dreams of being center stage moved be-
hind the curtain and into her own community. Her simple affirmation she recalled from her University of Arkansas days came true, she said.
“I remember in college I had a professor ask me
what I wanted and I didn’t say ‘I want to be a lighting designer on Broadway,” she said. “It was ‘I want to be able to work in my craft and be happy.’ I can say that I am doing that.”
BELLA – February 2017 – 5
“... I get the opportunity to work across the spectrum
and touch a lot of people in this community.”
“