Longtime Walton Arts Center VP Starts New Venture

Jenni Taylor Swain believes the arts can help spur along economic development.

It’s the premise behind Potluck Arts, an organization she founded earlier this year, ending her 26-year career as vice president of programs at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville.

After her youngest child left for college, the timing was finally right for Taylor Swain to start her own business, she said.

She was also emboldened by a Walton Family Foundation cultural study, published last year, which showed the strengths of the art scene in Northwest Arkansas and indicated a potential for the emergence of more arts organizations.

Right now, Taylor Swain is focusing her attention on the art form of contemporary circus and working closely with the Downtown Springdale Alliance to producing events in downtown Springdale.

“Contemporary circus has been a passion of mine for as long as I worked at the Walton Arts Center,” she said.

It’s not the old-fashioned, low-art form of circus. It stems from a new circus movement that started in Europe several decades ago and is now growing in the U.S., she said.

“New circus is a hybrid art form that brings in music, dance, theater, a very visual element, a narrative. It uses the tools that you might think of in circus, like acrobats, balancing, juggling, mime, clowning, but those tools are presented in a fresh, contemporary way,” Taylor Swain said.

At the WAC, Taylor Swain noticed contemporary circus events brought in more diverse audiences — different ages, socioeconomic backgrounds and levels of exposure to the arts. “It’s equalizing,” she said.

As she followed the medium worldwide, she saw projects where the art form has been used as a tool to enrich community development.

“Circus art has a real convening quality. It is non-verbal, so it works really well in communities with high immigration and high ethnic diversity,” said Taylor Swain, pointing to large Hispanic and Marshallese populations in Springdale.

“Also, there’s an element about it that’s magical and whimsical that draws people to it,” she said.

With Potluck Arts, Taylor Swain said she aims to create a model that could possibly be looked at on the national level as a showcase of how arts can aid in community redevelopment.

“I’ve got big ideas,” she said.