Published: October 26, 2008 11:12 pm      

Gianakos: The arts make Meridian special

Editorial Board

ibrown@themeridianstar.com



Meridian is a cultural mecca. But not everyone – locally, nationally or internationally realizes that or appreciates it.

Kris Gianakos hopes to change that.

"That's what makes Meridian special – the arts. There is a creativity in this community that is always moving," said Gianakos, who assumed duties as president of the Meridian Council for the Arts in July.

"I see in our council an opportunity to bring that out ... My largest challenge as president of the Meridian Council for the Arts is to try to bring the art community together," he said.

A retired Air Force colonel, Gianakos served 24 years as an instructor pilot and served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm. After touring extensively all over the world, he returned to Meridian and began working for Lockheed-Martin (now Fidelity) as a instructor pilot in the simulators at NAS Meridian. He also volunteers in the community and serves on the boards for the Meridian Museum of Art and Meridian Little Theatre, is president of a local credit unit, and has served as chairman of the Lauderdale County Republicans and Tipmasters.

But it is the arts that is his passion.

"I've always been surrounded by talented people – my dad did stained glass and spin art, I have relatives who are in the arts as professional singers at The Metropolitan Arts Theater and I have an aunt who designs jewelry for Lord and Taylor.

Gianakos recently sat down with The Star's Editorial Board to discuss his vision for Meridian Council for the Arts, as well as the local art community:



The Star: When did Meridian Council for the Arts organize?

Gianakos: It started in the late '70s as an idea, and in the '80s became a real live entity by people in the community deciding that we need to come together and promote our arts and promote art education. Together meaning all the different venues of entertainment art and literary – the humanities – coming together with a single purpose to help everyone move the whole process





forward and up, and elevate and improve it.

From there, it has been running strong. Today, we have 30 board members that represent a broad base of the community. We also have an auxiliary that we pull from for manpower.



The Star: What is MCA's purpose?

Gianakos: The two main focuses are: first, to promote arts across the board – written, performing, visual and musical; and secondly, to promote art education – to bring the arts as a teaching tool into our community's educational establishments (both county and city) and provide programs that enhance teachers' skills, provide them tools, provide teachers grants for projects they may have for art. And, on a grander scale, to affect the professional development of the teachers in integrating art education in teaching all the disciplines, whether it be math, science, history – not just art as a standalone. Art is everywhere.



The Star: How is the council helping city and county teachers?

Gianakos: Our education committee is chaired by two local educators: Nancy Rea at Poplar Springs Elementary School and Marsha Iverson at Meridian High School. Both are professional art teachers and they bring together a team in that committee, supported by members of the community. We're working on grants to develop art education; we've begun a federal grant of a rather large sum of money that we hope to develop for spring of next year.

They are constantly engaged in promoting the arts. Meridian High School is looking to do a production this year, the first time in a long time. That was brought to Meridian Council for the Arts as a potential for us to help gain monies to put on this production – as you know any theater production is not cheap, just to get the rights to do it is expensive. Back when I was in high school (MHS Class of '71), we had productions all the time. This has been a rare opportunity at this school in recent times. And now that it's come to the forefront, and we're here to support it.



The Star: What is your vision for Meridian Council for the Arts?

Gianakos: In my research when I took this position, my personal feelings were that we had spread ourselves a little too thin as an organization; and that happens to organizations as they mature and develop. So that vision came to "Let's focus back on what the intent was to begin with – supporting the arts and arts in education.



The Star: Is it feasible for MCA to support independent artist?

Gianakos: Definitely. That is one of our purposes that is outlined in our bylaws, that we can provide grants to individual artists. But we want to extend that even further.

In the promoting the arts side of the house, we want to create Meridian as a community that's friendly to art. We already have a fabulous anchor to the arts in the downtown area with The MSU Riley Center for Performing Arts. I've been around the world in my military career and there isn't anything as fine as that; it's a jewel. That creates an anchor for other things to attach to that promotes a lot of growth in the arts.

As you know, economic development in the arts is a big deal. Communities that embrace the arts and have pro-art policies in governmental activities find that the economic engine created by that creativity – not only in the people who come into it with ideas, but in the actual economic "I'm selling a product" type of thing and the revenues is huge.

We recently had the Three-Foot Art Festival, which is our community celebration of the arts. It's in downtown, it's everybody together celebrating. We brought in quite a bit of tax revenue, we collect the sales tax from the artists' sales right there in that event. Just that one day event, we're estimating over $10,000 worth of retail sales by the artists. We had 22 artists from six states – that's huge. That's a one-day event with intense activity.

But that's just one event. I talked to business owners in the downtown area during the event and I had a comment from one who said, "Boy, this day was phenomenal!" I talked to the owners of an art gallery and they said they had tremendous traffic.

So promoting the arts from our prospective as an art council it's not just the festival, it's something we've got to do all year long. And that's where we've been a little remiss and where we will be focusing a lot of our attention.



Star: Are there more opportunities to do more downtown events?

Gianakos: Yes. Nov. 1 we have the Soule' Festival, which will be an open festival to celebrate more of a craft side of the arts ... If we continue to do events such as these, we're going to see things along the line.

And then we have our art venues. We have Meridian Little Theatre, which has been voted the best little theater in the state of Mississippi and we have the Meridian Symphony Orchestra – those are two jewels, just like the Riley Center. And then we have Meridian/Lauderdale County Public Library that promotes to our children day in and day out; a Writer's Guild that continues to support writers in our community and lift their pieces up for viewing of the public; we have a cafe that sells coffee that has events where writers come in and read their poetry; we have Meridian Museum of Art, which has a tradition that goes back many, many years; and every Sunday, we have churches in this community that have probably the high end of the best singers and musicians that you are going to find.

Our job as an art council in promoting the arts is to make sure our citizens are aware that these opportunities are there – to bring your children to, to bring yourself, to talk about.

We need to realize that in all the times of our lives – whether they're the fantastic economic times, or bad economic times, or fantastic weather or the Hurricane Katrina times that we still have some celebrating to do. Our hearts and our spirits are full of celebration for the arts, and everybody, EVERYBODY can participate; that's the beauty of it.



Star: Is there anything new people can look forward to from the council during your one-year term?

Gianakos: The new things that we're looking at doing is that we really want to get more into a sustaining environment for promoting the arts. What tickles people's minds and awareness. We're probably going to focus a lot more in trying to create a golden thread through the promotion of the arts. I've talked informally with several media areas of "How do feel about us promoting the arts by giving you profiles of artists?" We have an Artists Co-op that has 30-40 local artists who we can profile as doing positive things – they're selling things, they're paying income tax, but they're being creative. You get to see what brings out this creativity in them; what their lives are like.

We have local galleries that have professional artists of national and international quality and expertise. They are teaching art privately to teachers, professionals, students and young children. We have MLT with art programs that not only deal with us adults in big shows like the upcoming "Annie," but coming up with "Peter Pan," which will spark children's imaginations. And the library, the Boys and Girls Club of East Mississippi and other entities that have afterschool programs.

If we are going to take a new venue, I see it as being more promoting the arts. We're going to go after more grants; we're getting really smart, really quick on the monies that are available from institutions.

Everywhere I've been in my military career, art is a common denomination of discussion; and it's always positive. I want to make something happen and I want to make the dream come true that Meridian is truly a teamed approach to our arts ... Somewhere down the line I would like to host a summit of all the local art entities so that we can come together, as one. I want to bring all those entities together – and amplify.