[ad_1]
Elizabeth Winslow admired Juxtaposition Arts long before she ever knew that one day she’d be running the place.
The nationally recognized arts education center in north Minneapolis’s reputation, of course, precedes it in artistic circles like hers. JXTA, as it’s known, is one of the only centers in the country that operates with teens and youth staffing and learning in a design center, retail shop, gallery, and studio space, as well as apprenticing in creative fields from visual art literacy to graphic design to environmental design and more.
For the bulk of its 30-plus years in north Minneapolis, one of its founders, Roger Cummings, has acted as director. But earlier this year, Cummings handed the reins to Winslow, a former music educator turned arts administrator and leader who’s now, officially, JXTA’s executive director.
“I first learned about JXTA around 2012, 2013, when I was working with Northside Achievement Zone, and we took a tour through JXTA,” Winslow says. “My mind was just blown. As someone in the arts education realm, the high quality of art and the community culture coming out of it, I just couldn’t believe it.”
Even with Winslow’s original background in music education—she founded the band program at Hiawatha Academies and led the program at Richfield High School, before serving as director of school partnerships at MacPhail Center for Music—she immediately saw the connection between expressing creativity and emotion through music as well as visual art.
“Even if I’m not much a visual artist, I have a huge appreciation for it, and it’s so inspirational to be around all the time,” she says. “Roger [Cummings] keeps saying I need to get some spray paint in my hands and learn how to do aerosol art once it’s warmer!”
Winslow assures she’s not here to turn an already successful, innovative program on its head—she’s taking time to listen and learn from all departments before making changes and moves—but says she and the community do have ideas about this next chapter for JXTA.
“We’re thinking about how we can leverage this very unique business model going forward,” she says. “While staying deeply rooted in our identity and community in north Minneapolis, but also maybe expanding and developing. What does it mean to do that in a way that honors JXTA’s roots and stays authentic?”
Part of that new chapter began before Winslow even arrived: Throughout the last handful of years, JXTA pursued a $14 million capital campaign and completed construction for a new campus around Broadway and Emerson, which holds spaces like a deep archive (founder Roger Cummings will be working with the archive quite a bit; Winslow says part of his next journey is archiving Black art in Minneapolis), room for JXTA’s visual art training (known as VALT), a gallery, labs, artist co-ops, and offices.
And the new campus makes it even easier to integrate into north Minneapolis’s community.
“The cultural vibrancy is incredible,” Winslow says. “Soon after I started, for Valentine’s Day, we were handing out bubbles and flowers and just brightening everybody’s day. We kind of created a traffic jam on that Broadway and Emerson intersection, but it just makes people smile. That relationship is so rooted in vibrancy and joy.”
Winslow really admires the community relationships that have formed in the past 30 years, and she wants to keep the community at the top of JXTA’s priority list moving forward. Keeping the arts accessible—whether it’s music to visual art to everything in—has long been one of her greatest passions, and she’s thrilled to continue the work with JXTA.
“It started to create this through-line in my career, making the arts accessible and making sure they’re vibrant and responsive and adapting to the times and the needs of young people,” she says. “I know what it’s like to be weighed down by those barriers, and I’ve always been trying to clear them, whether as a teacher or behind-the-scenes administrator or a leader.”
Want to see what JXTA students have been up to lately? Check out a publicly accessible exhibit by the org’s apprentices and artists in the Attorney General’s office at the Capitol now until June. Community members can see the work during operating hours (9:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m., Mon.–Fri.). Check in at the South entrance. For more info, visit juxtapositionarts.org.
[ad_2]
Source link
