Spy Top Story: A New Era for Talbot Arts with Joan Levy

September 13, 2021 by Dave Wheelan 

While Joan Levy arrived at the Talbot County Arts Council just as the COVID-19 pandemic started to take hold, she pulled off two remarkable feats over the last twenty months. The first was working with every Art Council’s grantee to ensure that those organizations and individuals would receive those important funds even during the health crisis.

But the second was working with her board to successfully re-envision the mission and brand Talbot County’s primary public funding source for the arts.

Even with social distancing and the compromises of Zoom calls, Levy and her directors created a plan that not only changed the organization’s name to Talbot Arts, but reinvented objectives to proactively reach out and serve entirely new and diverse communities in Talbot County. Just importantly, Talbot Arts double-downed on using the power of its website and multimedia to share these remarkable stories of art and artists with the public.

The Spy down with Joan at the Talbot Arts office in the Eastern Shore Conservation Center a few weeks ago to talk about some of these changes and what it will mean for our County and our gifted artists and those seeking to be one.