CCA remains optimistic through slow progress.
Operating a non-profit organization is hard enough without getting in a fight with the National Guard. Like many arts groups, the 25-year-old Center for Contemporary Arts has lived a hand-to-mouth existence as funding has declined in the United States over the past
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decade, dramatically so in the slumbering post-9.11 economy.
But last July, when fire code violations closed one of its buildings, CCA's landlord on the National Guard-owned property, the Military Historical Foundation, followed up with a notice of lease termination. CCA would have until September of 2005 to vacate the premises. It looked like curtains for contemporary art in Santa Fe [Cover story, July 28: "CCA Under Siege"].
Not so, claims Steve Buck, who replaced Jerry Barron as CCA's executive director in mid-September [SFR Talk, Sept. 22: "Art Survivalism"] while the organization reeled from the prospect of leaving its longtime home-and finding the funds to do so.
"The official situation is still the same," says Buck. "But we're asking the Military Foundation-in the short term-to allow us to stay until 2007 and we think that will happen."
The property in question also is home to Santa Fe Performing Arts, the Santa Fe Children's Museum and the Bataan Memorial Museum, which is operated by the Military Foundation. Buck is adamant that CCA's relationship with the Foundation, which as recently as August provoked hair-raising tension, has steadily improved.
Secretary of Cultural Affairs Stuart Ashman and State Rep. Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe), who both stepped in as unofficial mediators in the dispute, agree with Buck's assessment.
"The spirit is very different now," Ashman says. "There's cooperation and discussion from all parties." Everyone has become more respectful of each other's viewpoints and needs on the shared property, according to Wirth.
"At this point, there's been a realization that animosity and playing this out in the public arena is not constructive toward a workable solution," he says.
The turning point came when CCA brought Sherry Kafka Wagner, an experienced consultant for urban design and historic preservation, to Santa Fe in order to formulate a strategy that would enable all the entities at 1050 Old Pecos Trail to coexist. Wagner presented numerous examples of innovative, multi-use properties at an October meeting between stakeholders. According to Buck, communication immediately improved.
On Dec. 9, Buck presented a vision to the Military Foundation's executive committee, focused around Wagner's recommendations to create an interdisciplinary Museum/Arts
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complex on the property in hopes of dispelling tension and increasing the property's overall benefit to the community. The committee found the proposal compelling enough to schedule Buck to appear at an upcoming Jan. 14, 2005 meeting of the National Guard's Armory Board, the technical owner and final authority for the property.
"Wagner made a good presentation," says Delano Garcia, legislative liaison for the Department of Military Affairs, "but it's too early to say if her ideas are applicable to our situation in New Mexico." Garcia says the National Guard is very committed to working with the community and for everyone's best interest. To that end he says the Children's Museum and Santa Fe Performing Arts (which also received a lease termination letter) have a guaranteed future on the property, but he's not ready to make promises to CCA. "I can't speak for the Armory Board," he says, "but there will be some tough decisions to make, given the fire code violations that break CCA's lease contract."
Buck, however, is optimistic and eager to go before the Armory Board. "We believe we have a very good opportunity to collaborate on a great project here," says Buck, "but most of all, we need to know what our future holds." Whether CCA moves or remains at its current location, a capital campaign will be necessary and the organization is busy re-focusing on the arts programming that has endeared it to generations of New Mexicans. Recently, writer and film curator Jason Silverman was contracted to handle programming for the Cinematheque and Cyndi Conn has left the upscale Evo Gallery to assume duties as Director of Visual Arts.
"With or without this property," Buck says, "we're moving forward."
