CNY Arts Center Executive Director Discusses ‘New Normal’

by Contributor | April 21, 2020 1:39 pm

FULTON – Nancy Fox, executive director at the CNY Arts Center, has shared the following update with those who follow the Arts Center.

Did you catch the Disney Family Sing-along this past week? What fun that was to singalong with so many Disney favorites and remember those magical moments of simple joy. Disney devotion is prevalent and no wonder. It gives us memories for a lifetime and moments to remember happier times when uncertainties surround us.

Remembering is important especially when we can’t make new memories to carry us through what used to be everyday normal life. What was normal?  What will be the new normal? No one knows but certainly we will emerge from this with a new appreciation for those things we used to take for granted. And because we’re hungry to return to something familiar we fully expect to return to those things that we think were working for us before this crisis happened – the way we remember. Does remembering help us get to the future normal?

I’ve heard hope defined as remembering. I can hope people will come see the theatre productions we put onstage because I remember how exciting opening nights are. I can hope kids will come to Arty Camp this summer because I remember how much they enjoyed learning art and new ways to express their creative imaginations. I can hope we’ll be open in time for Arty Camp! I can hope folks will come to new classes and arts programming because they remember what great adventures they had last time.

And because I remember – my hope is encouraged and my imagination is exercised to imagine what will be. Remembering helps me imagine what the center will sound like when once again the rooms are full of kids, actors, musicians, and parents on a Saturday full of rehearsals onstage, music lessons on the lower level, dance rehearsals in the green room and art class in the gallery. It’s a sweet sound and because I can remember and imagine, I have hope and faith it will return even better than before.

I have no frame of reference for a new normal unless it’s based on what I remember. But I know the normal I don’t want to return to.

I remember too many long hours, early mornings, saying no to my family so I could search for one more grant or polish one more letter or fine tune one more outreach while carrying the self-imposed weight of keeping the Arts Center solvent …missing out on things because everyone clearly understood I was too busy. No, that’s not a good memory. I have certain friends I’ve encouraged to interrupt me because I will never not be busy so I’m grateful when they interrupt me!

But I don’t want to be too busy for whatever ‘new’ might be coming next. I don’t want to labor under the stress and striving of the pre-crisis days. I want to trust more because I have remembered that it will all work out – just like it always has.

Did you know I really come alive when you come into the Center. Yes, that generic YOU. I can’t wait to make new memories – with you! Yes, you are usually interrupting something but I imagine I will appreciate that more now. YOU are more important than any task at hand. Some days are well planned with a long To-Do list until one interruption after the other derails my good intentions. I learned a long time ago that God can orchestrate a better day than I can plan and when I finally stop resisting the interruptions, I find I have been richly blessed by each and every one. Somehow the really important work still gets done. I want to remember that more often!

So I hope I’ll remember the striving only long enough to not repeat those patterns and I’ll hope for a new normal better pace in its stead. And as I struggle now to imagine it, I’ll have faith that even better things will come for the Arts Center, for you and me.

I’m imagining our new kitchen and the smell of hot freshly baked chocolate chip cookies to greet you as you walk through the front door of the Arts Center because we’re always open, right? And you’ll come and sit and have a cup of coffee and a hot cookie and share with me your latest artistic moment – or your hopes and desires for something new. And I’ll connect you to the newest art program and introduce you to others just like yourself who want to share art and make art together, appreciating the simple joy of being together. Perhaps that will be the best new normal we can imagine for ourselves!

In the meantime, spend a little time remembering the sweet memories and imagine the best is yet to be!

By the way, Frozen Jr is being rescheduled for a later date to be confirmed. Stay in touch!

Can’t wait to see you again! Soon! Stay well.

-Nancy Fox

Source URL: https://oswegocountytoday.com/community/cny-arts-center-executive-director-discusses-new-normal/

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