Sylvia Brink keeping TFAC in balance

I was visiting with Chris Farrell over at the Tryon Arts & Crafts Fall Festival and learned that change is a foot once again at the Tryon Fine Arts Center. After many years of dedicated work keeping TFAC running smoothly, Jimm and Sylvia Brink are receiving promotions. I stopped by one day to visit with Sylvia Brink to find out more.

Tell me about this promotion for you and Jimm. Are you changing your jobs?

Not exactly, just redefining and redistributing jobs that have been here. I’m taking a little bit off of Jimm and he’s doing a little bit more with Chris. So it’s just a redistributing but it’s more than Executive Secretary. I’m not even doing Executive Secretary type of things right now. It’s more general office things, bookkeeping always, I love bookkeeping. That’s my favorite.

Keeping track of the numbers...

I love that. It’s fun for me. I know a lot of people might think, “What is she talking about?” But, I love to balance things out. It’s a good feeling.
Well it’s good to have someone to do that in the arts. Somebody has to, and it’s me.

That’s probably the hardest job to fill, someone who really enjoys the books.

I guess. I’ve done it all my life. I’ve done it nineteen years here and in New Jersey I did it for a straight fourteen years. When we had the butcher store, I did it at the butcher store.

How did you get into the Tryon Fine Arts Center in the first place?

Jimm and I, when he got out of college, we decided if we’re going to move down south, this is it. My dad was originally from Columbus. He grew up on Peniel Road, and I had a lot of aunts and uncles in the area. I had nobody in New Jersey left, so I came down here really to be near relatives. Unfortunately now they’ve passed away, so it’s just Jimm and myself here. I have one uncle left, but he’s in Atlanta.
I guess I didn’t work for about eight months just getting acclimated to the area and getting the house all set. I put an ad in the paper because I was really having trouble finding a job. I wanted bookkeeping basically. You put something in like “energetic” and fourteen years at my previous employment and I put the name in Sylvia Landis-Brink. Landis was my maiden name and I thought the Landis connection because of the family grew up on Peniel Road maybe there’d be something, and there was. At the time I had an aunt and uncle and their name was Landis and they lived here and Mervin Oaks knew them. Mervin Oaks was the president at the time of the Tryon Fine Arts Center and he called me up and interviewed me and then the group interviewed me and that’s how I got the job.

So had the job existed here before?

Well not as much. Lauren Miller had the job before, and she was executive administrative assistant or something. She left and I was supposed to start the beginning of November, but that is when we found Jimm had cancer on the brain. They held the job for me, they really wanted me, which was nice. I started the end of November after Jimm’s operation. When I first started here as Executive Secretary I did not do the bookkeeping, we had a bookkeeper, but it was promised to me, she was elderly in her 80’s and working part time, that when she left I would get that and I was given that position.

So the job kind of existed and you defined it more when you came in, then you took on the bookkeeping, and now what will you be taking on that Jimm was doing?

Basically, I’ll be taking care of the building. If something happens that we need a plumber or someone, I’m the one that calls on these things. I’m the one that schedules things in. I think I’m going to be getting more and more of scheduling. Not bringing acts in, but if someone needs meeting space I fit it in the schedule. I’ll be working with Chris and Jimm because they’ll be bringing the different performers in. So, we’re really working more together. We’re interacting more and more.

As oppose to being in your separate corners of the building?

Exactly. I think with only three people you have to do that in order to make it run smoother.

So Jimm will be working more with Chris?

Yes, he’s going to still be technical director but it’s going to be Technical Director/Associate Artistic Director. Then he will be learning more and more about that Associate Artistic Director and then he’ll be the Artistic Director with the Technical Director. He loves that Technical Director. You’ve seen him up there, he loves that booth. He will not give that up.

I’ll do scheduling, keeping up on repairs, service contracts, and ordering supplies of which…Jimm has always done that. There’s only so many hours in a day and Jimm can’t do all this stuff. Then I’ll be taking care of the volunteers, the ticket people and all to make sure we have that covered upstairs.

So you’re doing more scheduling and coordinating with people of the community.

Which really I did before, but nobody knew it, but then we got the Executive Director Eric and then I didn’t do any of that. I got away from it for a bit, and then Jimm was doing it and then Chris was doing it. But I have done this in the past so it’s really nothing new just redefining.

It takes someone who is organized.

I think I’m organized. I really do.

It’s also another balancing act. You mentioned bookkeeping is balancing, but when the community is using the space and acts are coming in to perform in the space it’s a balancing act to make sure everyone is happy and has what they need when they need it.

You never want to overbook, and I never have. I always handled the calendar before and I never in sixteen to seventeen years overbooked anything. So that was a good record, it can get a little hairy.

So nineteen years now you’ve been here?

It will be nineteen years on the 27 of November.

It’s kind of like family by this point.

It is.

Well and of course Jimm is family.

But he’s not family here. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, he always calls me Sylvia. We have been able to separate that, how I don’t know, but it’s worked. We have the house together in Saluda, but down here I’m not Mom, I am Sylvia. It works.

I always felt like theatre was a family in some instances anyway because you do so many things quickly and you have to coordinate and work together. It’s not something where you can just hide in your offices in separate corners of the building and not communicate.

You have to know how these other people are going to feel about things, and how they’re going to react to your decision. Chris has the basic final decision, but there are decisions that I have to make and Jimm has to make also. But we know what she wants.

So I bet you’re here first thing in the morning every morning.

Yeah, like I said I work here six days 8:30 a.m. – 12 p.m. and then 1:30-4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and then Saturday I’m here 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
If anybody from the community needs to talk about using the Art Center you’re the contact person for that now.

I’m just a phone call away and I have a voicemail. I always answer my voicemails. I’m really good at that. I pride myself on that because I know how it feels to wait for that phone call wondering “why aren’t they calling me back.” I hate that, so I’m good at that.

How have you seen things change for TFAC over the years?

We’re used more often by our affiliates and by the outside public. We seem to interact better with the affiliates. Tryon Little Theatre is having four of their six shows here this year for their anniversary. They’re just having two at the workshop. I think that’s a plus. I think the general public feels that the Tryon Little Theatre and TFAC are one in the same, they’ve never separated us. They don’t separate us out and in a way that’s very good except when it comes down to donations. That isn’t too good, because everyone has needs in the community. That’s how we survive, that’s how we have to survive. If people give to one thing they think they’re giving to everything and that isn’t the way. Every group needs help.
It’s hard to figure out when you see the different fund drives and it looks like it’s all headed toward the Fine Arts Center.

Especially when we have 34 Melrose Avenue on it. The Tryon Little Theatre gets their mail here. They get the mail here so people assume that we are one and the same. We’ve done articles in the past about that sort of thing, but the new generations coming in or new retirees don’t always understand that.

So the arts center operates as an umbrella for the other affiliates that use this space, but when it comes to operating costs for building maintenance that’s all the Fine Arts Center’s. So when you’re talking about donating to TFAC you’re talking about donating to the structure of the building?

The building, the heat, the electricity, the water, if something needs to be repaired, and if we have any money over that we can maybe buy another light for the stage. Things like that. Then there is the programming as well.

And a light for the stage isn’t like a light bulb for your house.

No. It’s a big expense, it really is. But conversely the affiliates have expense too. They have their own board of directors and their own finances and their own investments and yes, they pay a user fee here. They also pay their own insurance. We pay insurance here which covers them, but they have to pay their own also. In this day and age of everybody suing everybody you have to cover yourself. So they have that type of expense and their printing expense and on and on. Everybody has expense.

The series of performances here at TFAC are also part of the TFAC budget. Alvin Ailey last spring, Bearfoot and Frank Vignola this fall and the Cashore Marionettes in November.

That’s our main stage series. We take the expense of that. As well as all of our kids programming.

So those are all coming out of TFAC funds where as the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble is a Tryon Concert Associate event.

They have a membership series.

So by becoming a member and buying the series you are at a basic donor level for that organization. I’ve been impressed with the high quality of all the productions here. Tryon Little Theatre is all locally produced.

But still it is quality stuff. If you go around to other theatre groups you go “Oh my how fortunate we are,” because they put on some good things. We are very fortunate. Tryon is such a beautiful place too, all of Polk County. We used to come down here to visit all the time and we finally said “What are we doing in New Jersey? We come down here all the time for holidays, why don’t we just live here?” It’s like a permanent vacation in a way.