60 years of the arts in Lake

Fine Arts Association marks milestone

Jim and Louise Savage’s vision for a local artistic and cultural institute grounded not only in entertainment, but also in education, has reached its diamond anniversary.

From its humble beginning in 1957, and throughout its evolution, Fine Arts Association in Willoughby has benefited from community support to create scholarship programs, endowments and special projects, delivering high-quality arts experiences that have rippled outside the boundaries of Lake County.

Fine Arts Association’s story, in and of itself, is steeped in the kind of narrative storytelling seemingly set for the stage, a testament Jim Savage has lived.

“January 1946 heralded both an ending and a beginning in my life,” he said. “It marked the end of a mostly paid vacation in the U.S. Army while, at the same time, delivering a clean slate for the vast new world of opportunities that lay ahead of me.”

The arts, centrally music, was an abiding passion in Savage’s life and during a visit to his old college, the Cleveland Institute of Music, he “encountered” a “sparkly, lovely young lady,” Louise, who would later become Mrs. Savage and cofounder of Fine Arts.

Jim pursued additional musical studies along with other courses at Ohio State University, earning a degree in music.

“It was a happy world of success in music, love of home and expanding family,” he said.

“When these years in Columbus were completed, back to Willoughby we went.”

Jim began teaching in Bratenahl and “transformed” the first through eighth grade school of 150 students into a music center.

“I taught everybody’s children to learn music, perform on stage and entertain both poor and wealthy families at the school and in their homes,” he said.

“I taught the children of the mayor, a lawyer for the mafia and a variety of other students. In the process, I got to know just about everyone in the area, both rich and poor. This soon prompted me to envision a whole new world of possibilities for communities where the arts could make people’s lives happier and much more worth living.”

The eventual incorporation of the private, nonprofit organization, or, “cultural haven,” was fulfilled after a series of meetings, lessons, locations, welcomed births and established relationships with the community and various arts organizations, including Cleveland Playhouse, Karamu House, the Music Settlement and the art museum.

“The Fine Arts Association was always represented at music education monthly meetings, and we involved many county arts teachers and program activists as well,” Savage said.

“It fell to me to convince the Andrews School Board to lease a section of their campus to us as a construction site for our new building, aiming at a modest fee of $1 per year for the next 50 years. The project was accepted and the Fine Arts Association was finally in its new building on Andrews School campus in 1972.”

Savage, acknowledging the quick summary of Fine Arts’ history, and the “many great programs and events have taken place at the school over the years,” does carry a favorite memory.

“The first Fine Arts program of the 1974 season,” he said. “A Sunday afternoon concert by the Savage Family. We performed works by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Weill, Wieniawski, Donizetti and Massenet. We ended the program with the entire family performing excerpts from ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ which I arranged. I love my family and that pays off.”

As Fine Arts Association has advanced, so has its enrollment, programs and presence in the community, growth CEO Linda Wise said markedly reflects the expanding influence of the institute.

“The Fine Arts Association continues to evolve in order to best serve the needs of the community and beyond through arts education, performance and therapies,” she said. “In the last 10 years, several things have evolved in educational programming. We now offer school field trips to our facility where students experience all of the arts in a half-day program.

“Our faculty members also take these programs into the schools and relate the arts to the curriculum they are working on. Our educational offsite programming has more than doubled in size, as we have faculty members who now travel to four counties providing arts education and therapies. We built a wonderful relationship with Lake Hospital Systems to provide music therapy services at both Lake West Hospital and Tri-Point.”

The physical structure has also grown over the years, with a new ceramics room on the first floor, a new foyer at the front entrance and a current construction project adding over 5,000 square feet of additional programming space.

“The key to being able to add on to the building was Fine Arts being able to take ownership of its land,” Wise said.

“I have enjoyed working with a terrific board, staff and faculty who all contribute in some way to making Fine Arts what it is today.”

SUBMITTED Jim and Louise Savage are shown in 2012.