Blair Williams: Arts in her spirit, community in her heart

Blair Williams greets strangers as though they're old friends.

With a big smile and a, "Hi, how are ya?" she warmly welcomes visitors to the airy and bright space of The Art Spirit Gallery, where she serves as gallery manager.

She is always busy at the gallery and active with many other organizations. She said she never really relaxes with a novel to read because her mind always wanders to the million and one things she could be doing.

“I think that’s why I love that song from ‘Hamilton,’ that line, ‘There’s a million things I haven’t done, but just you wait,'" she said. "I’m like, ‘Yes, exactly!’"

Her love of the arts spills over into other aspects of her life. She's a parent volunteer at Sorensen Magnet School of the Arts and Humanities and she serves as the adviser of the school's literary magazine, "The Observer," through which she encourages students to expand their writing abilities and explore the creative world of language.

She loves her community and serves on several boards. She always has a project going, thanks to her endless supply of to-do lists.

But she wouldn't have it any other way.

"I have, since a very early age, loved working," she said. "I’ve loved finding that thing that you love to do and that’s all you can think about. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning, is whatever I’m working on and being totally committed to it — eating, drinking and sleeping it."

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How many organizations or entities are you involved with at the moment?

"I was just elected to the Arts and Culture Alliance board. I sit on the Coeur d’Alene Education Partnership board. I was on the board for a while with BikeCDA and other organizations. I’m on the long range planning committee for the school district. I do those things, but I do them because I love my town. To me, it’s gathering with people who have the same cause and effort and want to make their community better, so I hope we’re all involved in that way."

How long have you been with The Art Spirit? And what drew you here?

“Steve. Steve Gibbs is what drew me here. I went to Montana State University after graduation to major in architecture. Why? Because my father told me I needed to choose a major, and I looked over and saw an architectural digest magazine and said, ‘Architecture.’ (laughs) It was not very well thought out. I came home after a year there not enjoying it and went to work for North Idaho College and was fortunate enough to garner a board position with the performing arts alliance, which was then headed — this is 1986, ’87 — by Barb and Marty Mueller. They were the end-all, be-all for me.

I was working full time but also easily giving full time to that board because it was what I loved. At that time, I was convinced you couldn’t get paid to work in the arts. You could if you wanted to volunteer, but you couldn’t get paid to work in the arts. We used to have a bagpiping festival at NIC every summer. It was on, I was at the pub down at NIC and a group of bagpipers was in there chatting. One gentleman, I say, ‘Where you from?’ ‘Santa Barbara.’ ‘What do you do?’ ‘I’m the head of the Santa Barbara Arts Commission.’ And I say, ‘Ah, but what do you do for a living?’ and he said, ‘No, that’s what I do,’ and I said, ‘Hang on a sec!’ That turned my whole world upside down! That’s what caused me to leave and go to California and pursue a background in arts administration. I still have my notecard written by Barb Mueller that was my recommendation that I walked into the California Confederation of the Arts with, and they hired me on the spot. I worked at a statewide and national level in the arts immediately, and was like, ‘This is it.’ When you find it, you know, and that’s it."

What is it about the arts that sparks your passion?

“Two things. I have always loved to work. I love working and doing stuff. I love doing stuff in which you see some sort of an outcome. In sales, you see an outcome when you sell something. In program development, you see an outcome when you reach an audience and affect their beliefs or help them to create something. I love to work, that’s important. But I think every aspect of the arts has always been exciting to me, whether it’s dance or music or visual arts or performing arts, theater, whatever it is. There’s a creative element in everything everyone does, or at least there should be.

There should be a moment when you back up and say, ‘How can I come at it creatively?’ What I love about the arts is that it causes us to pause and look at how someone interprets something creatively, right? ‘Hamilton.’ I mean, it’s seriously a boring story. And I can’t stop singing the songs and thinking it’s the coolest story ever now. The art of casket building in Ghana, Africa. That’s a pretty cool interpretation of that.

So what do I love about the arts? I don’t know that I can specifically answer what it is that makes me passionate, except that I think everybody has that one thing in their spirit or their soul that they’re passionate about, whether they have found it or not. And when you know you’ve found it is when it’s all you can think about, you love to do it and you would do it even if you weren’t being paid, and for me, that happens to be the arts. I’ve worked with theater companies, I’ve worked for arts advocacy groups, I’ve worked for state arts agencies. I’m always inspired by the arts and how they affect creativity and positivity and people. The arts are generally always optimistic and resilient because people are doing it because they love it, that’s the resiliency of it, and they’re optimistic because they hope that somebody will like it.”

Why get involved at Sorensen?

“I’m not good with kids and Logan was a surprise, big time. We didn’t find out until we were 27 weeks along. We were like, ‘I’m sorry, what?’ We had three months to get ready for her. I never really paid attention to anything school district, but once you have a child, you sort of are, ‘Well, I guess I should pay attention to what’s going on and what’s working.’ I have an only child, I love the opportunity to be involved in her life. And what a dynamic school to get to be involved in. Dynamic parents, I mean, you can’t not want to be involved there.

What caused me to be involved was being invited. That’s a point I’d like to get across. I was fortunate enough that there were parents ahead of me that were already involved that invited me to be involved. I think that’s true with any sector, whether it be schools, the arts, or the environment or whatever. There’s a core group of people always involved, but there’s an even larger group of people in any of these sectors that want to be involved. They’re just waiting to be invited because they don’t know how to really entree, and I’m sure to some case I was that person, but I was invited, then you’re hooked.”

Why do you think it’s important for people to be active in their community?

“I can’t imagine not. That would be like not being active in the place where you live, your home. That would be like not paying attention to the maintenance of your home or the betterment of your home. When the paint starts to peel, you’re going to do your best to get on it and paint it. When the floors need to be cleaned, you’re going to do your best to clean them, and hopefully you also dream about how you’d like your home to be better. ‘I’d like flowers outside someday, so I’m going to save up and plant flowers.’ Your community is that to me. Your community is that place that if you don’t nurture it, why will you want to live here ... I grew up in Hayden, which is interesting, clear out on the lake, and what a great childhood it was. But there is something to me about downtown Coeur d'Alene to have that true town spirit to where by golly, you want to sweep in front of your shop every day and you want to be sure the flowers are looking right, and you couldn't be more proud when tourists come and say, 'This is an unbelievable town.' Yes, it is.