Courtesy of Dublin Arts Council
David Guion has a particularly moving piece of art outside his office: Tired Tomato vs. the World, a piece by then-fifth-grader Adeline Jacques.
The 2020 drawing captures the way Guion, Jacques and many others felt at the time.
“This year we are all a bit tired and all in need of a hero,” Jacques’ artist statement summarizes.
While Guion, director of the Dublin Arts Council, may relate to the unnamed trials of the tomato, his work through the pandemic has been tireless. He and the arts council quickly adapted and, recognizing the value of creativity and art in a time of isolation and uncertainty, developed new programming to reach the Dublin community during a time when many found themselves home with no idea when “normal” would return.
That work, which includes 12 new programs the arts council created since March 2020, earned Guion the Dublin Chamber of Commerce’s Business Person of the Year Award in 2021.
“Naïve optimism can really help to inspire lots of things,” Guion says. “If you think too hard about things, you think about reasons you can’t do it. And we thought of reasons to do it, so we just did it.”
Courtesy of Dublin Arts Council
As Guion and the rest of the arts council staff prepared to work from home indefinitely at the start of the pandemic, the team recognized that arts access and funding would both be jeopardized. As COVID-19 led people to spend unusually large amounts of time at home, the hotel/motel tax that helps fund the arts council saw fewer dollars, and hosting large gatherings or indoor events became impossible.
Government support proved vital to maintaining the arts council’s programming, but Guion worked to optimize the use of that funding and expand the reach of the group through collaboration with other organizations.
“We were able to raise the level of funding because we were able to work with other nonprofits,” Guion says. “Working together with all those entities, it really helped solidify the importance of the arts and creativity and wellness and just coping with the isolation of COVID.”
Thanks to this approach, the arts council rapidly created programming beyond the walls of the arts center building.
Working with Dublin Bridges and Welcome Warehouse, the arts council provided art supplies to families in need. Collaborating with the Greater Columbus Arts Council, Guion and his team organized a series of curbside concerts where musicians delivered in-person performances.
Other projects – which included collaborations with Dublin City Schools, Washington Township Fire Department, Syntero and others – created public art, virtual exhibitions and provided artistic resources to first responders.
“(Guion) found a way to keep things meaningful,” says Bill Andrews, president of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce at the time of Guion’s acceptance of the Business Person of the Year Award. “What he does can be put to the backburner in a hurry, but what he does is so important. It brought hope.”
Andrews says that he was moved by the nominations for Guion that highlighted the real-world impact of his work.
“He’s always putting others before himself,” Andrews says. “He wants the best for a lot of people.”
A Life in Art
Art by Adeline Jacques
Guion grew up dancing and painting, particularly drawn to modern and contemporary artists of the 20th century.
In college, he took a greater interest in the business administration side of the arts industry and earned a master’s in art education from The Ohio State University. He used those skills to kickstart a career in New York City where he worked with iconic artists such as Jasper Johns, Merce Cunningham and Robert Rauschenberg.
That gave Guion an understanding of how to present artistic ideas to potential art patrons and generate financial support for the arts. He continued pursuing that concept and returned to OSU for a doctorate in art education.
“Between the master’s, the Ph.D. and all that experience, it set me on a course to understand arts administration from a pretty intense level,” Guion says. “They’re the basis of what I do today.”
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Before finding his career in Dublin, Guion lived in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. During that time, he worked with influential 20th-century artists in dance – including Trisha Brown and Mikhail Baryshnikov – and visual arts – such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.
“You read about all this in graduate school and you don’t realize that those are the people you’re talking to,” Guion says. “It’s kind of strange when you go back to the book and say, ‘Oh my God, I just spoke to so-and-so,’ but I was young and decided I’d talk to anybody.”
Those artists tended toward experimental work, often incorporating mixed media, found objects and aspects of daily life into their work.
“Robert Rauschenberg would call and talk about lunch,” Guion says. “Now that I think about the conversations, they could’ve been a piece of art.”
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Guion took his position with the arts council in 2005, drawn to what he describes as Dublin’s innovative mindset and city staff keen to support the arts.
“Dublin remains relevant all the time,” he says. “They’re always looking at innovative ways to see themselves as a city.”
Guion’s impact stretches beyond Dublin though. He also teaches graduate courses at OSU, has served as a panelist for the Greater Columbus Arts Council and Ohio Arts Council, and has conducted workshops on arts fundraising around the globe.
“The great part about teaching is you learn just as much as you teach,” Guion says. “I think it’s always great to key into different generations and different organizations and how they approach administration and leadership. It’s really a two-way conversation.”
In general, young people and art continue to have an influence on Guion today.
Tired Tomato, after showing in the council’s Emerging and Artifacts exhibitions, attracted appreciation from the whole arts council team. The piece has since been added to the council’s collection. From its place outside Guion’s office, it continues to remind him of the impact creativity and art can have on people.
A conversation with the artist’s father made that clear to Guion.
“I said, ‘This has been inspirational to us, we’ve gotten through so much with Tired Tomato,’” Guion recalls. “The guy sort of teared up and said, ‘You don’t know what this means to me and to my son.’ You don’t realize (the impact) until somebody says something like that.”
Cameron Carr is the associate editor. Feedback welcome at ccarr@cityscenemediagroup.com.
