Brandon Johnson named Madison County Arts Council's new executive director
MARSHALL - While the executive director role may be a new one for him at the Madison County Arts Council, Brandon Johnson is certainly not a "new face in a new place at the nonprofit organization."
The Madison County Arts Council announced that Johnson, 35, would succeed Laura Boosinger as the new executive director. He had served as program manager of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area's Blue Ridge Craft Trails program.
Johnson brings a wealth of experience, both within the organization and outside of it, as he has worked with the Arts Council since 2007.
"This is the kind of role that I was looking for, and it's a community that I love and have some good connections in," said Johnson, who said his experience working as program manager of Blue Ridge National Heritage Area offered him experience in running big programs and budgets in upper-level nonprofit organizations.
Johnson said one of the aspects of the new job he is most looking forward to is the opportunity to devote his time in one area, as opposed to his former gig, in which he represented the westernmost 25 counties in the state, from Surry to Cherokee.
"Every time I went to go see somebody, I was always on the clock to go see somebody else or to get home," he said. "From one respect, I have a really intense and cool network of people, and some really great friends that I've made and people who will be my contacts for a long time and my partners working.
"But the idea of being a part of a community, being a storefront on Main Street, being able to be here every day was really attractive to me, because it's not what I had."
For Johnson, a native of the Happy Valley region of Caldwell County — "really close to where the Tom Dula story really happened" — Madison County has a special place for Johnson.
He moved to the area in 2006 when he went to Mars Hill University as a Bonner Scholar, a program in which students participate in service, leadership development and meetings/trainings for approximately 10 hours a week.
"This was the first place I ever really lived other than where I grew up, so this was the first place I ever had to learn and figure out by myself," he said. "So, that's always been really impactful for me.
"I remember when I was a freshman, I was just completely obsessed and just drunk with learning a new place. I really loved finding stuff out, driving new roads, and meeting new people and trying new restaurants, and just understanding what it meant to live somewhere else."
Johnson's community service in the Bonners Scholar program led him to the Bluff Mountain Festival, where he started as an intern in 2007, and in later years emceed the event and also performed.
"Bluff has just been this massive piece of my life for so long, and that was how I got connected to the Arts Council," Johnson said. "I was here for seven of my eight semesters. I taught in JAM (Junior Appalachian Musicians), I ran the bar and set up for concerts, I entered stuff in databases, I'd drive trucks to go pick stuff up and helped move from the old Methodist Church down here (on Main Street).
"That scholarship really ingrained the idea of service and volunteerism in my mind, to the point when I was serving on the board here, my wife was like, 'Why are you doing all that?' And I said, 'Why would I not do all that? You give yourself to things that you love and care about.' That process really ingrained in me the need to be a part of the things that you love, even if you're not making money doing it."
In 2022, Johnson served as emcee of the Bascom Lamar Lunsford Festival on Mars Hill University's campus, in which he bestowed the Lunsford Award to one of his mentors, Bobby Hicks.
He recalled a graduation ceremony where Jerry Plemmons and Pat Franklin said they would sit in with him in at the ceremony in case his parents couldn't make it.
"(Pat) didn't know that my parents were coming, so she and Jerry Plemmons came and were going to say that they were my parents," Johnson said.
Johnson said he has learned a lot about community in his time in Madison County.
"That's the kind of stuff, you know. There are those peopIe in this community, and I think about those two, Jerry Plemmons and Pat Franklin, in particular. I'm excited to learn who the next Pat Franklins and Jerry Plemmons are. I think they are here among us. I think that's an exciting point in life.
"I had this discussion with Donna Ray Norton, and we were talking about the people that we've learned music from, who are in their 70s and 80s now. We could have a bad day and there be no Bobby Hicks or Roger Howell. I still get worked up thinking about Arvil Freeman and him not being here. So, we kind of realized together, 'Hey, it's kind of on us now. The time is not in the future. The time is now for us.' So, it all kind of comes back to this place for me in terms of how I think and operate in a lot of ways."
Johnson said he's been fortunate to have so many great teachers of his own.
"I think to the people that have been the kind of models that I want to see in life, like Roger Howell and Laura Boosinger, these people that really embody tradition, and not just tradition for tradition's sake, but the actuality of tradition, which is changing and growing," he said. "Roger Howell is kind of old-time in a lot of ways, but he knows 700 fiddle tunes because he's a rabid listener, and he's got all these recordings from all over the place.
"I like to embrace complexity. Nothing good is ever really simple."
Cynthia Cutting, the president of the Arts Council's Board of Directors, said the applicant pool was a strong one, but Johnson beat out the rest, and the organization is honored to have him.
Goals, outlook
Johnson said he felt like one of the first things he aimed to do as executive director was to "take stock and reevaluate" after Boosinger's 15-year tenure in which "she did really great things."
"You don't walk in somewhere and blow things up immediately, and also you don't forsake the things that have gotten you where you are," Johnson said. "So, my goal is to maintain the things that people look to us for: Bluff, Art on the Island, JAM, First Stage Youth Theater. Those things are the lynchpins of what the Arts Council does. I want those to maintain and be a big part of what we do."
As the program director of the Blue Ridge Craft Trails, Johnson said it opened his eyes to the many possibilities of showcasing local artists in Madison County.
"I've essentially been under the hood of close to 300 craft arts — artists, artist organizations, galleries — in Western North Carolina. So I've seen all the way across the spectrum, from people who do it part-time in their garage, to some of the best galleries in the country. So, I've got a lot of thoughts and ideas about ways we can both engage a really intense art audience, but then also a community audience that might be less drawn to really high-end art.
"I think it's our jobs to think about arts in an extremely collective and open kind of way. We are the Madison County Arts Council."
Johnson also identified expanding the organization's outreach outside of downtown Marshall as another goal.
"Downtown Marshall is awesome, and the energy here and what's going on now, I could have never imagined it almost 20 years ago," Johnson said. "It's amazing what's happened here, and I'm really excited to be a part of that energy."
Like many Madison County residents, Johnson's artistry is wide-ranging. In addition to being a musician, he's also a luthier and a writer, as he previously taught composition, English literature and Appalachian studies at Mars Hill University.
"Music is always going to be something that's a part of Madison County, but I want to make sure that people feel like visual arts, language arts and other kinds of arts are equally represented, too," Johnson said.
Johnson said the organization will embark on drafting its strategic plan this year, and also said the Arts Council will ramp back up its capital campaigns for building renovations.
Last June, the SECU Foundation issued the Arts Council a $40,000 grant to help repair the Main Street building's roof and support classrooms on the top floor.
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"A lot of great work has been done, so that's not going to be anything new that I'm going to come up with," Johnson said. "But I think translating vision is essential in that kind of thing. When people are going to actually support you with their money, you have to make a compelling case."
Johnson's breadth of past experience should help him in his transition, he said.
"When I was a teacher, I'd always do something very soon to try to disengage all the preconceptions that students had about teachers, to just try to really turn everything on its head and be like, 'OK, this is going to be a different experience,' just to kind of get them out of that zone that is comfort and stagnant expectation," Johnson said.
"One of my personal goals, on a really microscopic kind of level, is to educate people: OK, so here are the benefits to paying $50 for a coffee mug, versus paying $5 for one on Amazon. This person has spent decades of their life learning how to do this, and have purchased these materials from a local business and are paying taxes in the local communities where you live, and if something goes wrong with your work, they'll guarantee it. There are all these reasons why you do that - you support someone in your community that can live there and can bring a different aspect to your community."
Another aspect of the new gig that excites Johnson is the community's emotional investment in the Arts Council.
"This is membership-based, and people offer contributions because they care about what's happening," Johnson said. "That's a personality thing. That's a relationship thing. That's a community thing. Somebody comes and sees a concert or sees an exhibit, it does something to them, and they say, 'I want to support that.'
"So that's meaningful to me, and that was a really attractive thing to me to be a part of an organization like that."
Johnson said he's thankful to be trusted to do the job.
"I'm super excited and thankful and humbled to put some kind of stamp on this organization and do something hopefully in this community that really helps people lock in to creativity and all the reasons that so many people who have lived here, and who do live here and who will live here are amazing," he said.
"It's all about dignity of people, and celebrating people who make a place a place."
The Madison County Arts Council is located at 90 S. Main St. in Marshall. For more information, call 828-649-1301 or visit its website, https://madisoncountyarts.com/.
Johnny Casey has covered Madison County for The Citizen Times and The News-Record & Sentinel for nearly three years, including earning a first-place award in beat reporting in the 2023 North Carolina Press Association awards. He can be reached at 828-210-6071 or jcasey@citizentimes.com.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Brandon Johnson named Arts Council's new executive director
