With an original piece of art on the wall behind her desk and a miniature statue of Michelangelo’s David next to her computer, Carly Dahl is settling in as the new executive director of the Batesville Area Arts Council. Dahl has lived in Batesville for five years, and with this new job, she said she is excited to meet artists from around the region and make an impact for the arts.
“I’m meeting a lot more artists in town because of the arts council,” Dahl said. “The Arkansas arts scene in general has been great.”
Dahl, who grew up in Monroe, Michigan, said her love of art came out at an early age. Her father had a small impact on that interest, and Dahl said she cannot remember a time when she wasn’t making art.
“My dad used to paint when he was younger, but I think I’ve always been interested in art,” she said. “I used to love coloring in coloring books when I was little, and it all kind of expanded from that. That was one of my favorite pastimes, and my mom told me that whenever we went to the store, I always wanted new, sharp crayons.”
After taking art classes in high school and finishing basic classes at a community college, Dahl attended the University of Toledo to begin formally studying art.
“What really attracted me to that school is that the Toledo Museum of Art is connected to the art building [at the university],” Dahl said. “The art building was actually designed by Frank Gehry. It’s a pretty impressive place to study art. You’d be talking in class about some van Gogh painting, and you could just walk over to the museum and look at it.”
Dahl said she does a lot of screenprinting — she got her degree in printmaking — and she mixes drawing in with her printmaking. She also mixes painting and drawing into her work.
“A lot of mixed media goes into my work,” she said.
Her favorite artists include Andy Warhol and Michelangelo — two very different artists who have both had a major impact on art history.
“I love Andy Warhol’s artwork,” she said. “I love all the bright colors of pop artwork. He does screenprinting, which is what I do, so I’m amazed when I get to see his work in person. … I also love Michelangelo. [My husband and I] got to take a group of students to Italy in May, and I’m always amazed when I see what Michelangelo did.”
After graduating from college, Dahl was working in retail and started dating her husband, Dustyn Bork. Two years into their relationship, Bork got a job as an art professor at Lyon College in Batesville, and the couple got engaged before the move.
“He actually accepted the job before I ever saw Batesville,” Dahl said. “I had no expectations of Arkansas. I had never been here before. When you hear that you’re moving from Michigan to Arkansas, it can be a bit startling, so I didn’t know what to expect. When we came down to look for a house, I fell in love with the place.”
Dahl started working right away after moving to Batesville, first in retail, then as the gallery director at the Lyon College Kresge Gallery. She was gallery director for 4 1/2 years, and she also worked in the Lyon president’s office for the past year and a half. She has now been executive director at the BAAC for a little over a month.
“I had been on the board for the arts council for the past four years,” she said. “I’m very familiar with the organization and have helped with a lot of the changes we have made recently.”
Dahl said she will continue — and hopefully expand — the programming opportunities provided by the BAAC. She has big ideas that she is working on, and some of those ideas include collaboration with Main Street Batesville to revitalize that part of town.
“I want to bring more attention to downtown,” she said. “I’d like to do some public art projects with Main Street. … Less than a year ago on our block here, maybe a third of the windows were vacant, and now they’re all full. It’s a good sign that things are getting better.”
The BAAC includes a gallery on Main Street that
rotates exhibits every four to six weeks. The current exhibit is White Noise and Black Lines, by artists Holly Laws and David Bailin. The exhibit will be up through Aug. 1.
Dahl said she sometimes meets people who are surprised that there is a high-quality art gallery in Batesville, and she takes pride in showing them what the gallery has to offer.
“A lot of people have come in and been really impressed,” she said. “This is not something they’d expect to see on Main Street in Batesville. It’s more like something that could be in Chicago. We always have workshops going on every month, and we showcase a lot of local and regional artists in our space. It’s a great place to shop and see art and make art.”
The arts center is getting ready for its Kids Summer Art Workshops, which will take place July 27-31 at the gallery. The cost is $50. Students will learn a variety of art techniques and will then be featured in an exhibit at the gallery Aug. 4 through Sept. 12.
“It’s really exciting for kids to make art here and see all the art in the gallery, and then they get to have their work displayed here as well,” Dahl said.
Outside of work, Dahl and her husband like to travel whenever possible. Dahl said they have traveled with Lyon students to Germany and Italy, countries that both include great opportunities for students to see historic art pieces.
Overall, Dahl and her husband are very involved in student life at Lyon. They are moving into the Spragins House on campus, which will make them resident mentors for the incoming freshmen.
“We’re going to be smack dab in the middle of campus,” she said. “We’ll have students over for meetings and lunches. We’re really excited about it.”
As Dahl continues to settle into her new position with the Batesville Area Arts Council, she said she couldn’t be happier. Her time as gallery director for the Kresge Gallery showed her the opportunities that can appear when directing a gallery, and she said she is now in her dream job.
“Rather than just being an artist as a career, having arts-administration responsibility is definitely my dream job,” she said. “I’m pretty excited about it.”
Staff writer Angela Spencer can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or aspencer@arkansasonline.com.