Holly West Canfield’s love of the arts, her love of the clogging arts, began early. “I was the queen of the bluegrass festivals,” Canfield said of her childhood. The new executive director of the Paramount Arts Center (PAC) would attend festivals and frequent The Blue Ribbon Fox Hunters Lodge in Catlettsburg with her grandparents who would coerce her to clog for the crowds. Her infatuation necessitated her tennis shoes be retrofitted with taps so she could clog anywhere. “I was probably awful,” Canfield joked.
Clogging aside, Canfield is quick to note she has never been an artist. However, it is her appreciation of the arts and her business expertise that will guide her on her new endeavor at the PAC. “I remember thinking it was huge,” Canfield recalled of her first visit to the historic theater to see the Festival of Trees and Trains as a child. “I remember it always being a special experience.” One such experience was to see a PAC play featuring a Chinese dragon. The memory sticks because of Canfield’s class visiting a Chinese restaurant afterwards to complete the cultural experience. “I was devastated,” Canfield said. “I’m a kid, so I just wanted some McDonalds.”
Canfield earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology and began work on her master’s in the subject when she decided on a change. She would earn her master’s in health care administration from Marshall University and join the Ashland-Boyd County Health Department as a public health service manager.
“Professionally, it really set the foundations to help me grow as a leader,” she said. “I was able to take that position and make it my own. During her tenure, Canfield was asked to write a grant proposal, something she had never done, to support fitness classes at the health department. When the grant was received, Canfield was surprised both at the approval and again when she was asked to conduct the fitness classes herself. It was a formative moment, as Canfield would become both a successful grant writer and a Zumba® instructor.
It was her grant experience that led her to the Our Lady of Bellefonte Hospital Foundation in 2015. Canfield helped bolster the foundation’s grants program and, during her three years of service, helped to establish relationships with funders. “These relationships can last and produce positive, meaningful change in the community through the hospital,” Canfield said.
Canfield understands some will look at her new job as a career switch, though she notes many similarities have her well-prepared. “The fundamental concept of fundraising is to bring money into the organization to provide services to your community,” Canfield explained. “At the hospital, they are healthcare services. At the Paramount, these services are in the form of education in the schools to students on arts and culture and providing shows and entertainment to the public. Arts management is new to me, but the PAC is a well-oiled machine. My role will be to assist with the daily operations and to see how I can help the great people here make their jobs easier.”
Canfield is a fan of educator/author Steven Covey, particularly his principle “seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Applied to her new role, Canfield seeks to learn all she can at the PAC and then to learn what the community wants from its theater. “I’d like to do a community arts survey,” she said. The opportunities have her excited. “The Paramount is more than a building that houses performances,” she said. “It is a staple in our community. It provides stability. Education. Culture. It is an economic engine as well as providing stress relief through entertainment to children and adults.”
Receiving the PAC’s executive director position caps a whirlwind period that has seen Canfield marrying, purchasing a home, having her first child and nearing completion of her doctorate degree. “I’m humbled,” Canfield said. “I went from just a few short years ago being me and my wiener dog sitting on my couch pondering where my life was going to take me to being immersed in it. Life is going a million miles a minute, but I’ve never been happier. I’ve never felt more alive. I’ve never felt more blessed.”