Arts need government advocate to help grow local jobs

ART HUB: Herb Weiss was originally hired in 1999 to verify artists belonged in Pawtucket’s then-nascent arts district. As artists began turning to him for help, his role became helping the local arts community grow. / COURTESY PATTY ZACKS
ART HUB: Herb Weiss was originally hired in 1999 to verify artists belonged in Pawtucket’s then-nascent arts district. As artists began turning to him for help, his role became helping the local arts community grow. / COURTESY PATTY ZACKS

(Updated, Sept. 10, 10:01 a.m.)

Herb Weiss has worked for 14 years to transform and revitalize the historic mill town of Pawtucket through a dynamic infusion of the arts into the economic-development fabric of the city.
As economic-development and cultural-affairs officer for the city, his creative vision has helped Pawtucket blossom into a community of working artists and arts organizations that continues to be a factor in creating and attracting new business.
With the fall arts-festival season launching into high gear, Weiss is on the leading edge. The Pawtucket Arts Festival has grown into a three-week celebration, from Sept. 6-29, with activities that include Chinese dragon-boat races, a film festival, a concert by the Rhode Island Philharmonic, Zydeco music, the Taste of the Valley food festival, plays at the renowned Gamm Theater, and of course, a spotlight on regional artists.
His work has not gone unnoticed. He’ll receive the Excellence in Arts and Business award from the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council at its annual awards dinner on Oct. 3.

PBN: What drew you to the arts as part of economic development?
WEISS: Actually, it wasn’t planned. I wasn’t specifically drawn to the arts. It just happened that my first day on the job in Pawtucket, on Jan. 4, 1999, was when the Pawtucket Arts District kicked in. The planning director told me it was part of my duties to certify that people residing in our arts district were qualified to be there. I could have just been a bureaucrat and asked them to give me the three documents that proved they’re allowed to be in the arts district, certify that and send them on their way to the Department of Taxation. … I could have done the job strictly by the book. But instead, artists started calling me and I started looking around for places to bring artists. … I developed a knowledge of spaces and places around town.

PBN: What brought you to Pawtucket in the first place, considering your degrees in social work and nursing home administration?
WEISS: I’m one of millions of people who got a degree in one area and landed in another. It’s really not about training. It’s about your skill set. After I finished my master’s degree in 1979, I got an internship in a nursing home in Washington, D.C. My education got me my first professional job as director of education and research for a trade association for nursing homes, the Health Facilities Association of Maryland. I wrote my first article in 1980 on my job and that sort of propelled me into journalism. … I came to Rhode Island in 1993 to write for a small newsletter company.

PBN: Did you have the title of economic and cultural affairs officer when you started working in Pawtucket?
WEISS: The job was in economic development and the title was program manager for development projects. I could never figure out what that meant. My job title changed after three or four years, after we started getting into the arts and utilizing the arts to grow our economy.

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PBN: How did you begin to encourage the development of an arts community in Pawtucket?
WEISS: I have an open-door policy, so when people would come to my door, I would see them without an appointment and they would be amazed. I’d take people out in my car for two or three hours, take them to five or six mills and introduce them to people. Of course, I could only do that because the mayor allowed it. … Word got around about how Pawtucket was bending over backwards to bring people into the city.

PBN: What kind of things have you done to convince artists Pawtucket is a welcoming place? WEISS: People would call me up and say, “Oh, I have an art show coming up in two hours and when you come off the ramp the street sign is missing, so they won’t know how to get to my mill.” So I’d call public works and ask them to put a sign up and 10 minutes later the traffic department would be out there putting up a sign. When I got a call from Stone Soup Coffeehouse, when they were relocating from Providence to Pawtucket and they said it was going to take all day because they had a little pick-up truck and 200 or 300 chairs, I called public works and they sent trucks to help move them. … Everyone was on the same page, in regards to customer service.

PBN: What would you recommend to other towns or cities that want to grown the arts community and spur economic development?
WEISS: I see the importance of an arts advocate in municipal government, where someone is responsible for working with artists and creative-sector companies. To make this happen for economic development, it all starts at the top with the mayor or town manager.

PBN: There’s talk about Pawtucket being in competition with Providence as an arts community and for creative-sector businesses. What’s your view on that?
WEISS: Some people might call it competition, but I call it putting your best foot forward and marketing your assets. Pawtucket is right off Interstate 95, we’re 10 minutes from Providence and 45 minutes from Boston, we have over 70 mills in which to provide artists with great mill space and we have an artist-friendly city government. People end up where they end up because of what they need to be successful. I think all the 39 cities and towns in the state are in competition for artists and creative-sector companies. •

INTERVIEW
Herb Weiss
POSITION: Economic-development and cultural-affairs officer for Pawtucket
BACKGROUND: Weiss arrived at his unique Pawtucket arts and economic-development position via an indirect route. During the early part of his professional career, he worked as a writer for a nursing home trade association in Washington, D.C. He came to Rhode Island to write for a trade newsletter on nursing home and aging issues and continues to write on those subjects, as well as health, for local newspapers. It was when he took a job in Pawtucket as program manager for development projects that he got on a professional path combining the arts and economic development.
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in social work from University of Texas Austin, 1977; master’s degree in long-term care administration from University of North Texas, 1979
FIRST JOB: Busboy at Kip’s restaurant in Dallas at age 16
RESIDENCE: Pawtucket
AGE: 59

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