Sunday Conversation: A chat with Arts Council Executive Director Mike Bass
On a crisp, cool Saturday morning, The Villager sat down with Mike Bass, the executive director of The Woodlands Arts Council, to discuss the organization’s role in the community and his position in the organization. Bass was born and raised in Corpus Christi and went to Baylor University. He worked for Andersen Consulting for 35 years, traveling the world for his work which provided him with a broad cultural background, before settling in The Woodlands.
How did you first become involved with The Woodlands Arts Council?
Well, it’s fairly interesting. I was taking pilates classes with the president, Cindy Hardin, and at the time I was serving on the Township board as a director. I served on the Township board from May of 2012 to November 2016. So Cindy asked me if I would get involved. This was right before The Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival 2013. She said, “Oh and by the way we need a treasurer, would you mind being the acting treasurer?” So I was the acting treasurer from 2013 until this last June.
The Arts Council never had any employees or ex-
ecutive directors. It was basically run by the president and the treasurer so I knew a lot about the Arts Council, the festival and all the things that we did. Instead of employees we had contractors—a festival director, community development director, fundraising director. So in January we decided we had too many moving parts and that we needed more fulltime leadership, and so we wanted to hire an executive director. That came to fruition in June when I said, “I’m very much interested in the position.” So, I got the position. Since then we’ve hired full time and part time employees.
The Arts Council was formed in 2005. That’s when we got our IRS status and actually started organizationally in 2004. It was started by four entities: The Convention Visitors Bureau, the development company, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion and Dr. David Gottlieb, who has always been a big advocate in the community for the arts. They had this idea of forming the Arts Council to serve as an overall arching umbrella to be an advocate for the cultural arts in The Woodlands.
The executive director is a newly-created position for the TWAC. As the first person in this role, do you feel any extra sense of responsibility or pressure to do well?
Oh yes. There’s lots of pressure to do well, especially when you have a new organization. I have a lot on my plate because we’re working now on the April art festival. We started work back in August because the planning takes a long time. There’s always areas where you can improve. Several years ago we began to branch out in several other areas in terms of the cultural arts. One is our outreach program and the other is in public art. We also work with children who have special needs. It could be juvenile detention system, some of the hospitals like Texas Children’s. We do programs for seniors or “super adults.” As executive director, getting ourselves organized, getting ourselves focused, putting the plans together—that’s a big challenge.
What are some of the events the TWAC hosts?
Initially we’ve always been known for our Waterway Arts Festival that we hold every April. It’s one of the top festivals in the nation. Typically we’ll have somewhere between 225 to 250 artists. We’ll have 16,000 to 18,000 attendees, so it’s a pretty well-known and a high quality cultural arts show. When you put on something like the festival you have to appeal to a wide range of art buyers and art lovers. You’ve got to have different price points and appeal to different people, but it’s always been very successful.
The multicultural festival event built around diversity and cultural arts that debuted this year will continue to be held. We also are working with the Township in their Art in the Park program where they bring an artist into their various parks. We’ll start in December our student art contest for junior and seniors in high school, the winners of which are granted scholarships. We do art tours once a month of the art benches along the Waterway.
Why is it important to have a flourishing arts scene in the community?
I think the arts, whether it be performing arts or visual arts, brings about certain feelings and enrichment in people’s lives. When you look at a painting or you look at a sculpture or you go to a photography show. Ask yourself, “What does that piece of art make me feel?” In addition, sometimes the art can have a feeling effect. Where would we be as a human race if we didn’t have art? We’ve had art all the way from the cavemen days. There’s also an economic benefit which we’re just now beginning to think about in The Woodlands.
Where does funding come from to support the TWAC’s programs?
We’re better off than most because about half of our income comes from earned revenue—admissions fees, artist fees, etc. But the other half comes from sponsorships, donations and grants.
What are some of the challenges facing the art industry?
Funding. Look at the last national budget. Look at the Texas state budget. What got cut? The arts. The biggest problem that I think the art community has is it has lots of great ideas, lots of benefits it could bring forward, but it gets back to whether or not you have the funding. The other thing is space. Space to be able to have your performing arts, space to be able to have educational workshops.
What does art mean to you?
Art to me means, I just like art. I don’t like all forms of art, but I know what I like and what I don’t like. I collected different kinds of art my entire life as I’ve moved around the world. It brings up some feeling of enrichment and satisfaction when I look at a piece of art. I like learning about it and learning about the artist.