The mission of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is to welcome all to celebrate the American spirit in a setting that unites the power of art with the beauty of nature.
In this episode, we sit down with KC Hurst and Marissa Reyes from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art to explore the transformative role of museums in today’s society.
Crystal Bridges is at the forefront of making art accessible and engaging, breaking down the traditional barriers that have made art seem exclusive or elite to create a space where everyone feels welcome.
We discuss the concept of “radical access,” the role of museums in fostering a sense of inclusion and belonging, the importance of listening to and learning from the community, the pivotal role of digital engagement in reaching wider audiences, and the ongoing work to create a workplace culture as vibrant and diverse as the art it celebrates.
You can read the full transcript of this conversation on our website.
Learn more about avad3 in Episode 5: “Building a People-Centered Production Company”
Featured In This Episode
KC Hurst is Chief Marketing, Communications, and Digital Officer for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, a renowned cultural institution located in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Marissa Reyes is Chief Learning and Engagement Officer for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. She has over 20 years of experience in the arts, education, and culture sectors and 14 years of senior leadership experience in art museums. She was recognized as the 2014 Illinois Museum Art Educator of the Year by the Illinois Art Education Association.
Cameron Magee is the owner of avad3 Event Production, a full-service provider of audio, video, lighting, staging, set design, and streaming services for in-person, virtual, or hybrid events. Cameron founded the company in 2011 in his college dorm room. He now leads a team of over 50 hard-working professionals that design and deliver flawless event production for clients nationwide. Cameron believes that character is as important as competence. He’s committed to building a people-centered production company that brings listening, empathy, and integrity to every client engagement, along with world-class technical expertise and seamless execution.
Adrian McIntyre, PhD is a cultural anthropologist, media personality, and internationally recognized authority on communication and human connection. He delivers engaging keynote speeches and experiential culture-shift programs that train executives, managers, and teams to communicate more effectively and connect on a deeper level by asking better questions and telling better stories.
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Transcript
From avad3 Event Production, this is Culture Amplified. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas is one of the country’s leading cultural institutions. Founded by philanthropist and arts patron Alice Walton, the museum’s permanent collection spans five centuries of American artworks from early American to the present.
In this episode … What is “radical access” and how does this concept and practice help to break down traditional barriers? How does Crystal Bridges create a community-centric space where art catalyzes conversations about diversity, inclusion, and belonging? And how does the museum’s leadership create a workplace culture as vibrant and diverse as the art it celebrates? All this and more, coming up.
Adrian McIntyre:Welcome to the Culture Amplified podcast. I’m Adrian McIntyre. I’m joined for this conversation by Cameron Magee, owner of avad3 Event Production. Cameron, welcome.
Cameron Magee:Glad to be here.
Adrian McIntyre:And two folks from the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. KC Hurst is the Chief Marketing, Communications, and Digital Officer. KC, thank you for joining us.
KC Hurst:Glad to be here.
Adrian McIntyre:And Marissa Reyes is the Chief Learning and Engagement Officer. Thank you for coming.
Marissa Reyes:Thank you for inviting me.
Adrian McIntyre:I am personally very excited about this conversation because I have for many years thought that museums are an underappreciated engine of learning, of community engagement, of change. And so I’m really excited to hear more from you about how you’re thinking about your work today. If we could start, KC, with just a brief introduction. How do you explain the mission of Crystal Bridges to folks who may not have heard of the museum?
KC Hurst:I’m going to fail the test on actually reciting the mission. But I think overall what our mission comes down to is access to art for everyone. I think at the core of how we were founded and the ethos of the institution, access is right in the middle of all of that.
Adrian McIntyre:Art is something that for many years, for many centuries, was only the domain of the elite. And clearly that has changed or is in the process of changing. Marissa, what’s at stake in being an art museum in this America in 20 24? Why does this matter?
Marissa Reyes:Art museums matter because they are part of our culture. And we are not a temple for expensive, rare objects, but rather we are a gathering place, a place where communities, at least if we do our job well, it is a place where communities can feel a sense of inclusion and belonging, see themselves reflected in the work that we display, in the people that greet our visitors. Really, Crystal Bridges has a kind of unique orientation in that way. And I think it sets itself a little bit apart from how other museums are represented in culture. And so I think to KC’s point around access, that very much absolutely drives who we are as an institution.
Adrian McIntyre:I think this combination of event production expertise and museum and community building is so important because in a way you’re both staging things for impact, right? Cameron, you’ve done a number of projects with Crystal Bridges over the years. Just talk a little bit about how that relationship has allowed you to do some of the things that are so important to you and why you’ve built this company the way you have.
Cameron Magee:I’m very passionate about Crystal Bridges. I’m very passionate about what you guys have done in the town that I grew up in. It means a lot to me. And I still remember the first time we were there. We were there doing a show. We were there doing an event. But I had time and I started wandering around and enjoying the place and realizing how little access that I had to art growing up in Arkansas before Alice did this, before y’all began this work. And it began shaping my perspective around art in a different way. I’d enjoyed art personally, but not at the level that Crystal Bridges allows us to do, allows my family to do, allows people in my community to experience. And so I just remember the first time being over there and realizing, “Oh, this is different.” And since then I’ve returned and brought my wife, who also grew up in Arkansas. We have two little boys I love to take over there and experience all parts of it. Because the work that y’all are doing is so important. And it’s so important internationally with the guests that come in. It’s inspiring. But it also just means a lot to me. And I think that was part of Alice’s heartbeat growing up in Arkansas was picturing me in a school bus, as a younger me. And so it’s meant a lot to me. And I appreciate what y’all are doing.
Adrian McIntyre:You’ve pointed to the fact that culture is a word with many valences, many meanings, some of them loaded, some of the more contemporary and open. KC, what is it about the cultural dimension, both internally and externally? You’re a communicator, you’re a marketer, you’re trying to change things with words and images and things of that nature. I can certainly relate to that. But underneath it all, in this context, there’s a lot more at stake. Can you talk about that?
KC Hurst:Yeah, I think one of the things that we’re really zeroing in on when we use the term culture is to like really redefine that and put a new dimension to how people are expressing culture. And I always say that culture is not owned by us as a museum, it’s owned by the people. And so we’re really intent on taking cues from our community and the people in helping to inform what it is that we are shaping. The museum would be nothing without people to come into the space and actually bring it to life, and I think sometimes that gets lost when we’re looking at wonderful works of art, great works of art. But the art is meaningless without an audience. And people have to feel something about the thing that we’re doing. And I believe that culture is just this evolving kind of idea and this concept that really is driven by people. And that’s just really important for us to always be centering around community, around people, how we’re engaging. I think that’s why the work that Marissa and team do is so important and so vital to the museum experience, that it isn’t just about the art on the walls. It’s about how we’re activating the space and really inviting participation. I’m curious to know what your first event was that you went to at the museum.
Cameron Magee:I’m trying to think what it was. It wasn’t the grand opening. We were not a thing back then. I was still in my dorm room forming avad3 back in the grand opening year. But I think it was, y’all had brought in some sort of a keynote speaker. I’m trying to think. We do like 200 shows a year, so forgive me if I’m being disrespectful. We’ve done like 2,000 shows since we started. But I think that it was a keynote speaker. I remember it was a panel discussion, a series, something that allowed me enough time that I could slip out and explore the museum for sure. But I remembered being taken aback by even on a show day how you guys refused to shut down the museum. You refused, which was weird for us. We’re so used to, if we’re in a venue, it’s shut everything down. It was a very important guest, whoever it was, flew in on their own plane just for this thing. It was a very big deal, and yet there were schoolchildren everywhere. And I remember wandering around and questioning that and just being really shut down very politely by the staff to say, “No, are you suggesting that the children wouldn’t be here?” And I was like, “well, I mean it’s just a little odd.” And they’re like, “No, that’s the whole point. You’re missing the point” of the access to all and the experience of the museum still being very vibrant and alive while we’re doing this very closed door, ticketed, extremely high VIP, high-touch show that we’re used to that environment. But it was interesting. There were still children everywhere.
KC Hurst:My gosh, that reminds me of a very recent event. We were running the press preview for the Annie Leibovitz exhibition, and we had a school group come through, down one of the main arteries that leads you from the Great Hall where you probably have done many events. It’s very photogenic and lots of things happen there.
We’re getting ready to kick off this conversation with the Annie Leibovitz, and a group of probably 50 children come walking down. And we’re trying to manage a show, right? We’re trying to get people through the galleries to press to see the show. And it was wonderful to see Annie herself actually stop and say, “we’re going to wait, and we’re going to let the kids pass.” And then not only did we let the kids pass, she was engaging with them. And one little boy said, “Are you famous, Miss?” and she’s like, “I don’t know.”
So that is very much the Crystal Bridges way. We don’t shut down. I think that’s one of the beautiful things about our institution is that we really have that commitment to access and that means being open. You know, it’s sometimes where it may be convenient to close the doors and do our thing, but it would really be cutting off an important part of our mission, which is to be available and to be that asset and that resource even if it’s a little later and there are things happening. And so I really, really love that about who we are as an institution.
Marissa Reyes:Well, I can just imagine how, even for the young child that’s walking through the hallway, how much that experience would have changed if they did get shushed or if they were told to halt here and wait until this big deal thing was happening. So I think that’s one of the things we pay really close attention to, and it’s especially important in the education space, that we never want our audiences, whether they’ve paid an admission price or they’ve come in through a school bus, whether they’ve been here lots of times or are a member or first time as a museum visitor, we never want, especially our young people, to feel like they’re not there and that they’re not welcomed. And so that very much informs even how we approach the works of art in the galleries when we are accompanying them on a school tour.
Adrian McIntyre:KC, you’ve used the phrase “radical access” to describe one of the commitments there. Can you unpack that a little bit? It takes it beyond accessibility in terms of wheelchair ramps and other sorts of physical things into other dimensions. What does it mean to you?
KC Hurst:To me, the idea of radical access means really being aware that there are lots of barriers that people come in to a museum space. Some of them are physical, some of them are perceptions. And I think the ones that are really hard to turn around are sometimes the perceptual barriers that a museum is not a place for me. And that’s the one space that I think we’re most radical, is that from our founding, that was a commitment that we were making was that everyone could see themselves in this space. And I would say, being a museum goer for many years, my whole life, in fact, when I walked into Crystal Bridges for the first time as a guest, I felt that there was something completely different in the way that the environment really welcomed me. It felt like a big, warm hug from the environment.
And I don’t know if, Marissa, if you have perspective from other museum experiences you’ve had, you might have some similarities there. But we go above and beyond to make sure that folks don’t feel like they’re going to get shushed, like if they get too close to a painting that someone’s going to come and snatch them away. And those are actually real things that I’ve seen happen in museums before. And it was wonderful that our staff, the way that we train our associates that are interacting with people in the galleries, that they’re really committed to making sure that everyone feels as welcome as possible. And again, it’s about how are we decreasing those barriers that oftentimes get in the way from someone even thinking about coming down to the museum on a Saturday. And we’re really just doubling on those efforts and those commitments by some of the things that we’re thinking through for the next 12 years, 13 years that will be around.
Adrian McIntyre:Let’s talk a little bit about that staff training component. In the context of this series, we have folks from big companies talking about issues they’re trying to think through with their own internal culture, their own people, their own personality, if you will, what it feels like to work for this company. Certainly diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging are topics that are vitally important, have become even more urgent in the past couple of years, and nobody’s quite figured out exactly how to move forward, how to work together to make a better world. How do you think about, talk about, deal with these kind of issues when it comes to your own people, your own operations, your own internal work.
Marissa Reyes:First of all, I think one of the common elements that sort of unite the folks that are working inside a museum is that commitment to mission. And I can tell you, whether you are working in development or you’re working the front line as a guest services associate, what draws people into working for Crystal Bridges is that commitment to mission, that absolutely buying into this idea that art should be accessible. And that’s a fantastic starting point for this journey that we’re on as an institution to become a better cultural institution, to care as much for our internal employees as we do for our audiences, for our visitors, and to go on this journey together to learn and become the kind of museum that we are wanting to be, especially as we are looking forward to expanding and changing in a couple of years’ time. So really the care for the staff, knowing that we have a great starting point as utter core believers in the mission of the museum and then going on this learning journey together to improve ourselves and to become the museum for the people. That’s how I would describe our culture. I don’t know if you have other things to add, KC.
KC Hurst:I think some of it for me is knowing that Alice made the commitment many years ago to hardwire that idea that diversity, equity, and inclusion is core to how we operate. Our executive director, Rob Bigelow, also carries the title of Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion officer. And that was really meaningful for me coming into the organization to see that at that most senior role in our organization, that that is a focus and a commitment that we’re making. Like other organizations, it’s not easy work. It’s a little messy, and it really forces us to have hard conversations, important conversations, fruitful conversations. But beyond the conversations, looking at how we take action and we take this opportunity to really learn about our staff, about what our community is feeling and how they’re perceiving us and our efforts to actually present a more inclusive museum experience and opportunity.
You know, I would be remiss not to talk about how that’s reflected in the art in the spaces, too. You walk through our galleries, and you see so much representation that it’s really wonderful. I’ve seen people stop and really reflect in certain areas of the museum around just like what they’re seeing. And oftentimes, I’m there as a secret shopper in the galleries. That’s like my Friday stroll. And you see how people are connecting with the art. And I’m imagining that some people see themselves and see others in the art that they’re looking at. And it’s incredible that we’re creating these opportunities with art as the conversation point to really exploring what diversity and inclusion looks like.
Adrian McIntyre:Yeah, I think it’s so critical, as you said, that this is a learning process and that we all, as humanity, are trying to grow up about some things that we’ve been really immature about in the past. And that immaturity has led to serious consequences for so many. So the obligation, it seems to me, of those of us who have the opportunity to explore that boundary and try to move things in the direction of justice seems like the exact right thing to do. Cameron, you and I were talking about this earlier and you shared a little bit of your own experience. Do you want to talk about that?
Cameron Magee:Yeah, we were just talking earlier today about how it’s so easy to get this wrong. And that’s why we have to fight and put so much energy to swim upstream, because it doesn’t happen without effort. It doesn’t happen without what I would consider extreme effort. Like, you were talking about radical access. I think it takes extreme effort. When I was early in business and starting to hire, we were just hiring whoever we could. We were employing whoever we could, but not realizing that we were accidentally becoming a culture of people that looked and sounded just like the founder, and how dangerous that was to our strategy here, and how dangerous it was to what we were trying to do.
And I think just in the past maybe four or five years—it’s not me that gets the credit, it’s the brilliant people that I’ve surrounded around me—we’ve really had to make a concerted effort to turn how we look at diversity and inclusion around here. And we’re still just a super small business. There’s 51 of us. It’s super small. But I’m proud of how it’s changed every voice at the table. I don’t just mean diversity from ethnicity or those sorts of things. I mean our age, and our place we’re coming from, from all over the country, and our upbringing, and our education. There’s so many elements where I feel like avad3 is so much stronger today because it’s so much different than just me. It’s so much different than just the founder. And I’m really proud of that, and I’m inspired by seeing what Alice and others have done. You know, we all grew up in the same town here in Arkansas, but by getting out of our hometown, it’s shifted my perspective. The times that I visited the art over there, it’s different and it’s not monotonous at all. It’s not more of the same. It’s so different. And it’s inspired my wife and I, and even how we’ve shaped our own family—our second, we chose to adopt—and just trying to change the kind of set in our ways way that it’s so easy to become. And so I’m proud of that change, but I think that cultural change starts with such a bigger conversation than just replicating ourselves, you know?
Adrian McIntyre:Yeah, and that certainly parallels what the museum world has been grappling with for decades. How do we not just represent ourselves to ourselves—when that self was very white, very elite, very located at centers of power and empire, literally. If you look at collections around the world, what are we looking at here? Primarily the effects of empire and colonialism. Now, art has a whole different set of transformational possibilities inherent in it, but you still have to navigate these very uncertain waters.
Adrian McIntyre:What are some of the things you think we haven’t figured out yet, we collectively, and then in the museum world in particular? What are some of the issues that you know are important, well-intentioned people are thinking and working hard on them, but we’re not quite there yet?
Marissa Reyes:That’s a great question. I feel like we’re constantly uncovering things we don’t know, and then really just feeding that back into how we think about ourselves. I think for us, where the museum is, our orientation is very much in a very real space of expansion. In about two years’ time, we’re adding 100,000 square feet of gallery space and learning engagement space in the museum. I think what we don’t know is, making sure that we are in lockstep with our audience, both the audience that we are already currently serving, and the audience that we have yet to serve that we’re not currently reaching, to make sure that this museum that we are shaping in two years’ time is really for them. I think maybe that’s not answering your question entirely, but those are the things that take up a lot of meeting time with us. It keeps me up at night sometimes, but just making sure that the museum we’re building, the museum of the future, is really for the communities that we’re wanting to serve.
KC Hurst:Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think to add to that idea of like making sure that the museum is a place that reflects our community. Sometimes I think we, and I use we in a very large sense, like we in the museum space, having worked at another museum, and Marissa, maybe you can attest to this, having spent a lot of your career in the museum space, is the overthinking of what people want, what moves people. And really not reflecting on how to get that out of the community. And I think we’ve done a really great job in the way that we are thinking about our expansion of our campus. And beyond expanding the campus, we’re really expanding who we are as a cultural asset, as a community resource, in ways that don’t really model what other museums are doing. And sometimes we can get in our own ways by looking at other aspirational aims, other museums, but I don’t think that’s Alice’s vision. I don’t think that is Alice’s way, and it certainly has trickled down to us that we really need to be thinking a lot more outside of the box about what this opportunity, in the unique setting that we that we’re in …
We’ve adopted this phrase, or I’ve adopted it. I really thought there was something poetic as we were trying to think about, how do we make sure that what we’re putting out to the public is really unique. And it’s really about the place that we’re in, right? No other museum has this setting. No other museum has this part of Arkansas as its backdrop. And so the phrase “in this ravine, only these things happen here,” is really, I think, this kind of poetic sentiment that’s driving the way that we’re approaching how we’re doing the work that we’re doing, how we’re going to carry forward this big charge to really invite a community in. Some of the work that’s being led at the museum, certainly in our learning and engagement space, but really a collective effort for all of the museum teams to make sure that we’re having community voice at the table in a lot of the formation of what we’re offering, how we’re approaching the addition of 100,000 square feet and what that means. And not just going to folks who know the museum or know museums or what these institutions look like elsewhere, but folks that are actually living and breathing in the community in different ways. And I think that’s really exciting to have different perspectives and vantage points that are entering into the space and helping us to figure out how do we become much bigger than what we could ever think of.
Adrian McIntyre:I love that you pointed to the overthinking that sometimes can happen. I think there is a privileged aspect to that as well. If I may, I’ll share a little bit of my own personal experience. I spent my 20s and 30s kicking around the Middle East and Africa, and the latter part of that working primarily for humanitarian relief organizations in conflict, in war zones. And some of the best professional relief agencies in the world have people who are professional handwringers, trying to think through – and some of this is very good. I don’t want to – it might sound like I’m being critical, and I guess I am a little, but I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But anyway, thinking about things like, well, how do we engage with our communities, and what should we do, and what’s the right way to be not from a place where people need help and then to go in and try to serve them? And at some point, the sort of obvious question was, well, talk to them, ask them, what do they want? What do they need? And the answers came back and they were sort of surprising because aid agencies were very caught up in delivering aid as either physical goods, food, particularly in the case of U.S. Aid agencies or other medicine, blankets, mosquito nets, things of that nature. Turns out when you ask people what they want, they tell you unequivocally they want cash.
And then there was a whole set of debates. “Well, I don’t know. Can we just give people money?” Turns out—the World Food Programme has done some really amazing research on this—that actually cash disbursements directly to the women decision makers in households is universally, regardless of culture, regardless of location around the world, the most effective way to make sure that the aid produces the outcomes that you want. You give them what they need because it’s what they asked for, and they will use it for what they need at the family level. Like one family needs medicine, another family needs mosquito nets. So give them cash. They get to make their own choices. The fact that this was even a concern shows some of that inequality that was baked into aid delivery, first world versus the rest of the world, and that kind of thing. But when you ask people what they want and then find ways to just get over yourself and give it to them, it turns out it works really well. And I think there’s some parallels to that in some of our leading cultural and educational institutions. Sometimes we get caught up in overthinking things. Sometimes that’s good. But sometimes the obvious thing is ask people and then give them what they want.
Cameron Magee:Yeah, that’s really good.
Adrian McIntyre:When you think, KC, about the future, what are you excited about? What are you working towards? What are some of the things that are providing meaning for you personally in the work that you’re doing now?
KC Hurst:That’s such a good question. I have so many ways that I can answer that, because I think I’m really lucky and privileged that I get to come in to work every day and do the thing that I love to do, which I’ve been a career marketer. And in finding my path into this cultural setting has been really just an amazing experience. I’m around art every day. I’m around brilliant people like Marissa every day that are doing really deeply meaningful things to really improve communities. And so pinpointing one thing that I’m excited about as I look to the future is a little bit of a challenge to do on the fly here, if I’m being honest. But some things in my work that are really exciting. So one of my titles, you mentioned the three words there, marketing, communications, and digital, that digital piece is really a space that is exciting, because I think we’re on the horizon of a new era for museums and how we present our stories in this digital context. When I think about the opportunities that really only can happen through digital tools and technology, the ability to scale your mission and your stories to the world becomes a really exciting prospect.
We have lots of data on how people are either glued to their phones or to other devices. And I think sometimes that gets such a bad rap. But you think about how much information and inspiration is at everyone’s fingertips. It’s really inspiring and exciting to see what can come of that. So some of what we’re doing as we’re thinking about expanding the institution physically, we’re also thinking about that from a digital standpoint as well and how we can actually take our stories out to reach more people at scales that we haven’t dreamed of before.
Adrian McIntyre:Marissa, what’s exciting you? What’s providing meaning and purpose in your own life as you do this work?
Marissa Reyes:So I’m a mother. I have an 18-year-old who attends University of Arkansas, and I have a seventh grader, 12 years old, attending public school here in Bentonville. And what’s exciting me about the work is the opportunity to work in partnership with our state’s educators and school administrators to integrate the art meaningfully into what our kids are learning and doing in school.
And that’s not a given, right? We know that teachers are under a tremendous amount of pressure to teach through the standards, to teach literacy. And what we over at Crystal Bridges try to do is to make the case that we are an extension of that classroom. So I would love nothing more than for every single student to experience the kind of experiences that I know my kids experience, KC’s daughter experiences, because our kids grew up around museums. But it shouldn’t take having a parent who works inside a museum to be able to have arts and culture in your life. So what excites me about the promise of that is that, yes, I think we can live up to the mission of the institution around access and to really provide that access to the arts, to a quality experience for our very youngest folks here in our region.
Adrian McIntyre:Cameron, avad3 as an event production company has a unique opportunity to sit at the intersection of so many different things. You’ve got corporate clients, nonprofit clients, arts and culture, educational institutions. You really get to see into a lot of different realms where people are thinking, as Marissa and KC are speaking to, about meaningful things, things that matter, things that impact all of us. What’s exciting you about the future? What’s coming down the pike that you’re seeing that’s providing that meaning and purpose in your own life?
Cameron Magee:I’m glad you asked. What’s been exciting to me over the past few years is we’ve rebuilt coming out of the pandemic, of just kind of no events happening for months. We’ve been rebuilding our team, and we’ve been able to do a lot of—this sounds silly, but it’s near and dear to my heart—job creation and economic growth in our home region here. But not just creating jobs, not just for people who are already here in Arkansas, but bringing people here from all over the country to have those jobs. And then taking those people and saying, hey, we’re now a national event production. We don’t just do work here in town. Let’s go on the road together.
And so we have an 18-year-old who had never seen the ocean before. And he’s been with us, he just celebrated his one year. We just gave him his one-year badge. And he saw three oceans in three weeks. And it’s like, “well, the Gulf isn’t really an ocean, Zach,” but he’s like, “well, I saw the Pacific, I saw the Atlantic, and I saw the Gulf,” and he had never been to the water before. And I get excited about when I was growing up here in Arkansas, there was nowhere to do event production in my hometown. That’s why I had to create it in our dorm room, to make it up. But there was certainly nowhere that I could do A/V and event production and management and also get to travel outside of the region. And when I think about just how in Arkansas I was. I mean, I love Arkansas. I don’t mind kind of poking fun at us a little bit, but there’s only 3 million of us in the state. I was very much just stuck in Arkansas growing up, but now I get to see the country. And I love that the jobs we’re creating at the entry level job. People that this is their … he’s 18. This is his first job outside of high school. He’s getting to experience incredibly rich information, like you said, of the corporate events we’re doing, the nonprofit events, the political events. He’s getting such a diversity in his first twelve months. But then also he’s getting that diversity on the road, but he’s bringing it back to Northwest Arkansas.
He’s not getting that diversity because he lives in Miami or something that’s already diverse. He’s getting that diversity, but he’s bringing it back home. And that just makes me so happy. Just that economic bolstering of our home state, the job creation, the entry-level job, and getting to see what literally Zach, quote-unquote, shout-out Zach, is getting to experience as an 18-year-old, the diversity, the things he’s hearing and seeing on our shows in town, but also all over the country. But then bringing that home and sharing it with his roommates, sharing that with his friends who are 18, who here in Arkansas. That makes me really happy. And it inspires me to want to grow and do more shows and bigger shows, not just because we’re a business and that’s what you’re supposed to do as a business. You’re supposed to grow. But because of the impact that I’m seeing on our teammates and how it’s changing him and our culture in this little bubble of work. And then in his culture and his circles around town. That makes me really happy.
Adrian McIntyre:KC, you spoke as well to the opportunity that digital presents to open windows into worlds that people haven’t seen. As we look forward, imagine that 60 years from now we’re looking back, and we’re reconvening around whatever a podcast is in 20 41 or whatever. I’m not a math major. Looking back, what would you like to be proud of in terms of your contribution to opening up access to the arts to the world?
KC Hurst:I really think it’s about, for me, fundamentally changing mindsets about museums, one, and about other people. I think you learn so much about others through these types of assets. So I’ll use myself as an example. As a child growing up in a very humble setting, museums were the way that I understood the world, that I understood people that weren’t like me, or at least I had some representation of what other people were, like someone living in Paris, or getting impressions of what the world was. And had I not had those experiences with art early on, I feel like my growth as a young woman, as an individual, would have been stunted. Or I would have come to it later. But I think fundamentally what I look forward to, looking back on my career and some of the things that I’ve been able to do with Crystal Bridges, is really shifting mindsets about what it means to belong in a place. And we’ve got such the right … we have the right grounds for doing that with the way that we’re presenting art and the experience with art to really be able to transform lives and change that mindset.
Adrian McIntyre:Marissa, we’ll give you the last word of this episode. Looking backwards from the future, what’s the legacy you’re looking forward to being proud of?
Marissa Reyes:I think it sort of carries with the theme of today, which is that art becomes an integral part of our lived experience, that it isn’t this thing that’s over here or up top. But it’s art that one encounters in the classroom or on a Saturday morning walk through the trails, and you’re experiencing art and nature together. So that art is truly, truly embedded in who we are and how we think about culture and our place in it.
Adrian McIntyre:Marissa Reyes is Chief Learning and Engagement Officer for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. KC Hurst, Chief Marketing, Communications and Digital Officer for Crystal Bridges. Cameron Magee is the owner of avad3 Event Production. Thank you all for this rich and rewarding conversation.
Marissa Reyes:Thank you.
KC Hurst:Thank you.
Cameron Magee:Thank you.
Adrian McIntyre:Thanks for listening to this episode of Culture Amplified. If you enjoyed the conversation, please share this podcast with a colleague who might also find it valuable. It’s easy to do! Just click the “Share” button in the app you’re listening to now.
Culture Amplified is brought to you by avad3 Event Production, located in Northwest Arkansas and serving clients nationwide. avad3 believes that event production should be flawless so your message can shine. They provide many free resources for corporate and non-profit event planners on their website, including planning checklists, technical guides, and templates. You can download them free of charge at avad3.com. That’s A-V-A-D-3 dot com
Special thanks to Cameron Magee, Tabitha McFadden, Amy Bates, Jessica Kloosterman, Steve Sullivant, Kimber Reaves, and Olivia Martin at avad3 for helping bring this podcast series to life.
Podcast strategy, on-site recording, and post-production by Speed of Story, a B2B communications firm led by Adrian McIntyre – that’s me – and Jen McIntyre. Music by Diego Martinez.
Most of all, we’d like to thank our featured guests, who so generously shared their time, stories, and insights with us. You can learn more about them in the written notes for each episode, at avad3.com/podcast.
For all of us here at Speed of Story and avad3 Event Production, thanks for listening – and for sharing the show with others, if you choose to do so. We hope you’ll join us again for another episode of Culture Amplified.