As ArtStart’s Development Director, Melinda Childs’ calling is to build individual, community and financial relationships that promote ArtStart and the arts as vital to our area’s creative and economic wellbeing.
Childs has more than a decade’s hands-on experience working in the arts-based community development field. She has organized neighborhood art festivals and guided artists and communities though the “how to” of creating public art projects. She takes particular pride in organizing the Art Shanty Project in which artists designed interactive fishing shacks on a frozen lake.
While serving as Program Director and consultant for Forecast Public Art in Minneapolis, Childs designed professional and economic development training programs for artists and communities seeking to use art to activate their environments and economies. She participated in numerous grant committees, as well as the planning committee for the Great Places Initiative. Childs also worked on planning artist specific content for the Public Art Network’s annual conference.
Childs lives in Rhinelander with her artist husband-Jaron, two young children-Roan and Singer and dog Kasper where they lead an art- and nature-filled life.