Alison Marks, a high-profile presence in Petaluma’s arts community who helped found a city arts council, will become the new executive director for the Dance Palace Community and Cultural Center this month.
Ms. Marks, who has roots in West Marin but has lived in Petaluma for the past few decades, brings experience with arts, fundraising, community organizing and youth. She is also familiar with the Dance Palace; she joined the Common Voice choir last year and often attends performances. That background provides crucial skills for the new leader, who takes charge of a nonprofit that organizes community classes and arts performances but has struggled with budget deficits in recent years. She will start on July 13.
The Dance Palace, which is over 40 years old, has had just two executive directors in its history. The board let go of six-year executive director Dan Mankin late last year, citing a new strategic plan that calls for stronger community and donor relations. In January, at the center’s annual community meeting, over 100 people showed up to provide input on the nonprofit’s future.
The board interviewed eight candidates for the position this spring, but Ms. Marks impressed the directors with her breadth of experience and community-oriented work. “I feel like so much of her work… really focused on enrichment for the community. That’s really our mission statement: Enriching lives for people in our community,” said board president Ann Emanuels.
Her fundraising and budget-managing experience was another draw. The Dance Palace has struggled with finances in recent years; it ended the 2013-2014 fiscal year with a budget shortfall of about $30,000, but raised that amount in a matching campaign shortly after.
Ms. Emanuels said the organization has adopted a balanced budget for the coming fiscal year and that it is planning a fundraising campaign this fall that will be “a little more vigorous than in the past.”
“[Alison] knows fundraising. She knows about working with foundations. She knows grant writing,” Ms. Emanuels said. “Financial sustainability is one of the pillars of our strategic plan. We’ve got to be sustainable going forward.”
Ms. Marks, a native of Ohio, began her career as a visual artist and arts teacher; after leaving Cleveland right after high school, she spent the first 15 or so years of her adult life in Bolinas. (She moved to Bolinas to join a craftsman guild and worked as an apprentice, making jewelry and metalwork.) As an artist in her own right, she ran an independent studio for about 20 years in the ‘80s and ‘90s, selling works—mixed media, masks and sculpture—to galleries while also producing pieces for clients like Lucasfilm and Saks Fifth Avenue.
As a teacher, one of her first posts was at Bolinas-Stinson Union School District, where she taught art from 1981 to 1988. She then moved to Petaluma, where she continued her studio work and taught around the North Bay, largely at secondary schools and school districts but also master classes for a state crafts association.
Her work in the arts has branched into community organizing, too. “When I came here, I realized that there was no community organization that really celebrated creativity and brought the creative community together,” she said.
In 1998, she helped found the Petaluma Arts Council, a nonprofit that spearheaded the creation of the Petaluma Arts Center. For over a decade she served different roles: board president, board member and interim executive director; she also headed a capital campaign for the council that raised $1.5 million.
Ms. Marks also advocated for and helped author a city public art ordinance, which devotes proceeds from a one-percent tax on commercial and municipal development to public art projects, and she is currently chair of the city’s public art committee. “We now have a city-wide master plan for public art,” she said.
At her most recent job, she directed a youth program at Sonoma State University for 11 years. The summer program provides both arts and science classes for fourth through ninth graders, and among her duties were raising scholarship money and managing the budget.
Ms. Mark’s left the position last year, and jumped on the chance to work for the Dance Palace when she heard about the job opening. “It was time for a change: to do more creative personal work and get back to a smaller sense of community,” she told the Light. “I am honored and really excited to work for the Dance Palace… I see it as being a place where everyone in the community is welcome. It’s a place where the community meets and people share their lives. They serve all segments of the community: the children, seniors, the Hispanic community. The strength of the Dance Palace is that it is a true community center.”
Ms. Emanuels, for her part, is confident that Ms. Marks will easily connect with West Marin, given her ties to the area and her personality. “[She is] someone who likes people, who is easy to get along with, and she will be a welcoming presence in the Dance Palace,” she said. “She seems pretty unflappable. She’s a solid gal. She knows what she’s getting into.”