Where the arts speak

Two decades ago, Ginger Savage, ’99, lulled her sons to sleep with passages from her economics textbook.

“Kids don’t care what story you read to them at night,” she said. “I woke up with my cheek stuck to the page when I’d fallen asleep. The professor that term gave me an additional quarter to finish because my youngest son had been so incredibly ill.”

Savage was one of the first online EOU students, who mailed essays and assignments before the internet provided virtual classrooms and live chats. Her sons were under the bleachers avoiding sunburn when she walked across the stage in 1991. A short 18 years later she watched her son Lee receive his diploma from EOU, too.

Her business background coincided with her commitment to volunteerism in 2008, when the Crossroads Carnegie Art Center in Baker City hired her as its Executive Director and first full-time employee. The nonprofit had spent the last six years raising $1.6 million to renovate its historic home in the Carnegie Library.

Founded in 1963, the art center moved into the library in 1971, but left 12 years later when it became impossible to heat. The city owned the vacant building, but it needed significant restoration. The Crossroads Art Center Board agreed to a 99-year lease at $1 per year, and initiated a fundraising campaign.

“Day one I was overwhelmed,” Savage said. “They had just renovated this long-term home, and it was going to take a lot of work to keep it going. I didn’t have an art background, but I had a business
background.”

The nonprofit has grown to include five employees and a committed group of board members. It’s also seen explosive growth in the Baker County arts community.

“We had a great arts scene when I started 12 years ago, but it is remarkable what we have now in Eastern Oregon,” Savage said.

She works alongside artists who have left cost-prohibitive urban living to establish a tight-knit community in Baker City.

“I try not to be offended when people are surprised at the volume of arts and culture in Baker County,” Savage said. “We’re probably always going to have a big chunk of our economy that is agriculture, but art and ag are not in competition.”

But her real motivator for leading the art center is an inherited sense of civic duty. Savage won the 2016 Peggi Timm Civic Leadership Award that Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative awards to a woman in a different county each year for significant contributions to their community.

“I came from a family of people who were always the doers in the community,” she said.

The Crossroads Carnegie Art Center, through Savage’s leadership, inspires children and adults through art classes, workshops, exhibits and mentorships.

“By giving kids an opportunity to be creative through dance, voice, theatre or painting, you see that transformation,” Savage said. “You see senior citizens engaged in the center, you see people with dis-
abilities being engaged with what we do.”

From juggling the busy life of parenthood and distance education, to directing a 501(c)3, Savage has created a welcoming place where people meet and the arts speak.