COLUMBIA — Marie Nau Hunter is the manager of Columbia’s Office of Cultural Affairs. The Missourian asked her to explain her job and how it impacts the arts in Columbia.

What does your job at the Office of Cultural Affairs entail?

I’m responsible for the overall implementation of the programs and services of the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs, including funding of local arts organizations, the Percent for Art program and the Columbia Festival of the Arts. Also, I’m the main liaison to the city’s Commission on Cultural Affairs and their Standing Committee on Public Art, the two citizens advisory groups appointed by City Council to work with our office on arts-related policies and issues.

What kinds of art or cultural events do the Office of Cultural Affairs sponsor?

Through our art-funding process, we’re able to support an impressive array of local arts events and activities, from including exhibits at the Columbia Art League, to concerts by the Columbia Community Band, to classes at Access Arts, to performances by groups like the “We Always Swing” Jazz Series, Theater Reaching Young People and Schools, and the Missouri Contemporary Ballet. And there are lots more, so apologies to the agencies I did not mention by name. We’re also involved with the Artrageous Fridays events held downtown quarterly and organize the annual Columbia Festival of the Arts, a multi-discipline arts festival that takes place every September.

Do you attend art and cultural events?

Absolutely, and as often as I can. There’s way more happening than I could ever get to, but I definitely try to make it to events from time to time. Just last Friday I attended the Artrageous Friday event downtown, so I could get a sense for how the different venues were participating and what the turnout was. And I am planning to make the next performance of the Missouri Contemporary Ballet. I enjoy participating in the arts as an audience member and supporter, as well as working in them.

So, what type of arts are you most interested in?

Visual art is my first love, I suppose. I started out as a fine arts major in college and then switched to art history for both my BA and MA degrees. But I enjoy music of all kinds as well as dance. I can still remember some time steps and have tap shoes that fit — and theater. My mom encouraged involvement in the arts from an early age, so I took classes and workshops in visual art, theater, music and dance at one time or another growing up and went to many performances and exhibits.

Is your family involved in the arts as well?

Absolutely. Right now my son is having great fun in an after-school theater class he is taking with Theater Reaching Young People & Schools for six weeks, and his first-grade class will be going to a ceramics session at Access Arts next week. My husband is an annual volunteer at the Columbia Festival of the Arts and can claim some stage time in theater while growing up. As a family, we enjoy participating in arts-related events and activities together.

Do Columbia residents seem more open to art and cultural events than other communities?

I do think that Columbia is a very arts-interested town. I suppose that is one reason there was interest in and support for establishing an Office of Cultural Affairs within city government, as you certainly do not see that level of commitment in most other Missouri cities and towns. And the fact that a city the size of Columbia has so many different arts organizations and opportunities definitely proves that there is good interest and a solid base of volunteers, participants and audience members supporting these groups and attending their events.

What kinds of art or cultural events draw the biggest crowds?

I wish I could tell you off-hand, but the detail you ask for would require an overall evaluation of audience-member reports that we don’t currently do and don’t have the available staff time for at this time. Individual arts organizations are definitely tracking their events and activities and would be able to provide some idea as a result. I want to add that it isn’t always a huge number that defines success. A theater class for 10 kids or an intimate concert can absolutely be great events and even meet the expectation of the sponsoring organization. So while big “blockbuster” events are important, so are smaller to mid-sized events.

What kinds of grants or funding does Columbia give to art and cultural events? And about how much money is usually allotted for the arts?

Our annual arts-funding program has three categories: We have funding for presentation projects like concerts, performing arts series, special events and exhibits; funding for education projects like workshops, seminars, symposiums, in-school programming and literary publications; and funding for projects that have both a presentation and an education component. In our current fiscal year, we are providing $95,000 to support projects being organized by 16 local arts organizations. We also have $5,000 set aside for our Small Request funding program that allows quarterly applications from arts organizations for up to $500 for smaller projects. You can access the mission statement for our annual arts-funding and Small Request funding programs at gocolumbiamo.com/Arts/. Just scroll down to the dollar-sign icon, and select the appropriate links. And just as a point of clarification, we don’t call them grants. They are awards and represent a contract for services. Essentially, via the Office of Cultural Aaffairs, the city is contracting with local arts organizations to provide arts services in the community to citizens and to visitors. We do that rather than try to organize events on our own as an office.

So, after looking at the Web site, I noticed it said the Columbia Festival of Arts attracted about 10,000 people last year. Do you expect that number to grow? And if so, how will you continue to attract more people?

The 10,000 is an estimate. Since it is a non-ticketed, open-entry, free event, it is difficult to truly know. But with the Festival hours of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. for two days, we know we get a lot of people. Of course, weather is always a factor. We have more people when it is a perfect-weather weekend and fewer when the weather does not cooperate. From our perspective, we feel like it is very important to be conservative with our crowd estimates so as not to over-inflate them. As for your question about if we think the number will increase, of course we hope for big crowds every year. And we try to incorporate something new and different each year to keep the event new and changing so people want to come again, year after year. For example, this year we are billing the Saturday of the Festival as “All Day, All Dance” and bringing in several really great dance groups to perform that have never performed in Missouri. Last year, we had a Latino theater troupe from Texas perform and featured some giant walk-about puppets and stilt walkers who came from Colorado. Special attractions like those help us to promote the festival in new and different ways each year.

Do the type of popular events change with the times, or are the same kinds of events always popular?

This is a tough question to answer because I think it would require some long-term study to really offer an accurate view. In general, however, I think that it is safe to say that many kinds of events have stayed tried-and-true, like museum and gallery exhibitions and performances of music and theater. For sure I think that arts organizations are always thinking about ways to interest new audiences and make their events different, and new and unique. After all, this is the “creative industry.”