Eva Laird Smith

The arts and international cultures come together in Eva Laird Smith’s personal biography as well as her resume.

For the past 18 months, she has served as executive director of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, a position that follows years of nonprofit management as well as the care of arts collections.

It marked a return to the arts for Smith, 64, who came to the job after holding top posts at the USO of Hawaii, Junior Achievement of Hawaii, the Filipino Community Center and Hawaii’s Plantation Village.

The daughter of an American mother and a Filipino father, she started with a bachelor of fine arts from the College of the Holy Spirit in Manila and capped it with a bachelor’s from the University of Washington and a master’s degree in museum studies from the University of Manchester.

Perhaps the most formative period in her career was when she finished her studies in England just in time to return to the Philippines for the "People Power" revolution headed by Cory Aquino. Smith became deputy director of Malacanang Palace, formerly the primary residence of ousted President Ferdinand Marcos, now one of the nation’s stately homes and art museums.

Now Smith finds herself with the challenge of reimagining the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, finding new ways of partnering with businesses and government agencies such as the Department of Business, Economic Develop- ment and Tourism and the Hawaii Tourism Authority. Supporting the arts in the future will require a lot more than reliance on state appropriations, she said.

The Hawaii State Art Museum where the foundation is housed is a perfect venue for concerts and exhibitions, she said. The biggest attention-getter of the last few months, though, was the showdown with state Rep. Faye Hanohano over the perception that too few artworks were by Native Hawaiian artists.

Relationships have been repaired now, she said, recalling an encounter with Hanohano at a hearing.

"I hugged her, and I said, ‘Do you remember who I am?’ And she said, ‘Eva!’ And I said, ‘Yeah, State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.’ Mixed feelings all mirrored on her face.

"So I said to her, ‘Are we good?’ And she said, ‘We’re good.’"

QUESTION: What brought you to this position?

ANSWER: I had been thinking I wanted to get back into the arts, and the years before that I was functioning as the director for the USO. So it’s military and families and all that, and when I looked back at my career, yes, I’d been in nonprofit management, but my basic degree when I first started was in fine arts.

Q: But your first job in Hawaii was at the Waipahu Plantation Village, right?

A: Yes. … Just by sheer serendipity I saw this job announcement. Then I remembered one of my professors who said, "Eva, in Hawaii it’s who you know, not what you know." Really? So that was a little daunting, discouraging.

Then they called me in for an interview for Plantation Village. … I said to them, "I’m new to the place, I do not know anyone here, but I guarantee, give me six months, and I should start networking." So I got the job.

It was a good entry point because it was a crash course, all the ethnic groups were represented. All of a sudden I was gaining insights and knowledge. … It was a good way to learn about the culture.

Q: What’s your current focus at the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts?

A: When you look at the organization itself, it’s nearing a 50-year span. … We felt it’s time we review what we’ve done, where our milestones are, what we want to be … how do we sustain the organization as we move forward?

Now we’re seeing that the needs of the times have evolved. Are we still addressing those, or are we falling behind?

Q: Is there going to be a plan that comes out of this?

A: There is already. It’s up for final approval by the commission, but it’s already in written form.

Q: You’ve mentioned that there are plans for "creative platemaking" — partnerships that fuel the economy. What is it?

A: It’s a concept that a lot of other cities like New York have done. Portland, they’re very good at it. … They actually focus on different forms of art, and activities come up that fuel revenues, tourism — they’re all intertwined. So we’re hoping to do collaborations with HTA (the Hawaii Tourism Authority).

Q: Arts activities and attractions?

A: Cultural tourism. We’re feeling that, with the trend now, when you look at cultural institutions, we’re finding out that slowly, that well is drying up. You have less funding coming in from government, from institutions.

So the only way you can sustain your activities and be relevant is to look for creative ways to fund your activity. We’re looking at partnerships in the community … with, for instance, private organizations or individuals to do certain programs, to expand those interpretations of youth programs. We cannot just be saying, "Hey, the DOE (Department of Education) is going to give us money." They don’t.

We’re having to look for funding to be able to make subjects within the DOE curriculum-appropriate. How do we infuse art? We bring in apprenticeship programs, where artists are brought into schools, they work within the schools and then at the end of it, we may do a commissioned work for the schools.

Q: Are there any examples of this on the front burner that you can talk about?

A: One of our more successful programs is Art Bento.

Q: You mean like a bento box, for lunch?

A: Yeah, except it’s art instead of food. It’s been in existence for about four years. It heightens the museum experience for children. Right from the classroom, they’re briefed on what to expect when they go on this visit. Then they get here, there’s a museum educator that comes in and explains, "Here’s what you’re experiencing, we’re going to help now put your experience into some kind of art to project what you’ve seen, how you’ve experienced that, what does it mean?" …

It’s become very successful but it’s very Oahu-based because it pertains to a visit here. So what we’re wanting to do is do a program where maybe we can do portable types of art from off the collection that can travel to the neighbor islands, and do programs for different public schools. …

Q: So do you make grant proposals for activities like this?

A: There you go! So, we were thinking that here’s a creative way of doing it. We could probably approach businesses, corporations, even individuals and say, "Would you like to gain credit and adopt a certain box, a traveling Bento Box? … "

That’s one project we want to do. Then because we’ve got 6,000 relocatable works of art, what we’re wanting to do is respond to what the legislators are saying: "Hey, you gotta show more art out there." Instead of keeping 33 percent in storage or not actively being used, we aim to show more.

Q: What events would be a good sell to tourists?

A: I’m personally finding out that we gain more value and relevance by positioning ourselves within the Asia Pacific … Office of the Governor, doing cultural sister-city and state relationships, those we’re really encouraged to be part of. … For instance, they’re starting to talk to the Chinese, mainland China, for cultural exchanges. We are very interested in partnerships of those sorts. …

We are hoping to entice them for tourism. So because we don’t function in a vacuum — we’re not in this silo — if we’re able to look at ways we can partner up, do collaborations, that would be a more sustainable and more relevant way. …

Q: So what would the foundation bring to this partnership? Exhibitions?

A: Probably. Or like a venue. For instance, the sculpture garden lends itself very easily to performances.

Q: I have to ask for your take on Faye Hanohano’s challenge of Native Hawaiian representation in the state collection.

A: Personally, I thought, here was a question begging to be asked. Hawaiian is our host culture, right? And really there comes a point where you ask yourself, "Are we really responding to that matter? Are we giving them enough? Do we focus enough on them?"

But then we have to temper that with, if we highlight Hawaiian culture, are we not also duty-bound to highlight other cultures that are part of our greater culture? And we are. …

If you ask me, "How many pieces are in the collection that are Hawaiian?" it’s difficult to answer, because I’ll throw back the question and say, "What is the (Hawaiian blood) percentile to be considered Hawaiian?" Because for one thing, a number of the artists have mixed names, which don’t necessarily indicate their ethnic origin. …

For us, the question is: Is it good art? Is it something we should highlight or that we should encourage, more than, "Are you Hawaiian? Are you Chinese? Are you Filipino?" …

This was a very hot, hot issue for my staff. I had to represent them, I had to represent the organization, but I also had to be true to our core mission. And that is, we’re not just here for one culture — or five.

Q: Did it all seem to come out of left field for you?

A: You know, the experience that really, really prepared me for this was having to spend six years of working with the Cory (Aquino) government, where I would be subjected to seven coups attempts, break-ins at the palace, where I would speak as a spokesperson for the collections, for everything that was controversial. You learn to temper your approach, your responses, but you always have to be fair to everyone.

It’s a juggling act, but you know what? It wasn’t completely alien to my character. … My God, I went through a modest revolution. I was in front of tanks. What more can you throw at me? I went through Pinatubo, when it erupted, I was there in Manila. What more can you throw at me? … You’re in Asia. You’re kind of like, go with whatever. Tsunami? You just have to. And you survive that.