Colquitt County Arts Center

By Adelia Ladson
adelia.ladson@gaflnews.com

Courtesy of The Moultrie Observer

Every organization has a few people who are the ones who seem to be the driving force behind its success but there is always one person who seems to embody its vision and purpose. For the Colquitt County Arts Center, it’s Jeff Ophime.

Ophime’s position as executive director of the arts center seems to be only a small part of his passion for the center.

“Art is something to me that is so inspiring,” he said.

Ophime was born and raised in Wisconsin and he said his earliest memories were of having a pad of paper and crayons. He said that he remembers drawing pictures in church on the offering envelopes with the little mini pencil that were placed in the holders on the backs of the pews. He said, laughing, he guessed his parents didn’t mind because it probably kept him quiet during the service. He said drawing was something he excelled in during elementary school but he said he doesn’t consider himself good at it.

“I’ve always been inspired by art,” Ophime said.

He said he had always been more interested in looking at art and experiencing art than creating it himself.

After he graduated high school, he moved to Utah to work at a ski resort because he had gone to Utah to go skiing several times while he was in school.

“I moved to Utah to ski,” he said laughing.

Unfortunately, that year, there was a drought and no snow for the season, so he ended up having to find another job. While there, he worked from running a Christmas tree lot to welding together horse corrals.

He graduated from Utah State with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts with an emphasis in advertising design and a minor in business. His first job in the arts, after college, was as the assistant director at the Salt Lake City Arts Center.

“I learned there that the problems and concerns in a major metropolitan area are really not that different from the problems and concerns in a smaller, rural area,” he said.

He also lived in Hawaii for about a year working as a pedi-cab driver giving tours of Waikiki Beach and other odd jobs to make his way.

Eventually, he moved to Las Angeles, Calif. to work for a major entertainment and publishing company, where he worked for many years.

He said he’s been in Moultrie for six years now and has bought a home that he really loves.

“When I came to Moultrie, I was struck by the beautiful homes,” Ophime said.

He said he tells people that he has never lived anywhere that he’s met so many nice people and made so many friends so quickly. He said the two things that he’s found that make it so wonderful to live here is the arts center and his church St. Margaret’s.

“To me they are both organizations that have so much to offer and I’m perplexed that they're not overrun with people to get through the doors,” he said.

He said he had come from working in Beverly Hills living in the heart of L.A. and when he walked into the arts center and met Jane Simpson, it made it easy to move to Moultrie and make the transition. He said the center had made such an impression on him and he believes that it makes an impression on other people who are relocating, as well.

“We offer things at the arts center that you would have to go to a much larger city to find,” he said.

Ophime’s vision for the Colquitt County Arts Center is to have even more programs that speak to the community, he said.

“I believe we value what we use and support what we value. People using the arts center and supporting it go hand-in-hand,” he said.

He said he felt the job of the arts center was to find more programs that the community would like to support which, in turn, would help in the success of the center. He also said he thought the main thing was to expand people’s minds but it needed to be a balance between what was comfortable for them and what could become comfortable for them.

He said, for himself, a wonderful way to spend a day would be at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he could see new artists with edgier works and the 18th, 19th and 20th century American artists, too.

“Or you can go to the Egyptian collection and see things that are 2 to 3,000 years old,” he said.

Ophime said he likes to see how the earlier artists have influenced the modern artists and that’s is what makes it appealing to him.

He said he likes all types of art and appreciates different forms of art from traditional landscapes to the Pop Art of the 1960’s — he especially likes Andy Warhol. He likes Early American Impressionism and abstract, non-representational art, too. He said an abstract painting might represent to him the abstract color and shapes of a butterfly’s wings or the bark of a tree. He said he believes a lot of abstract art has its base in nature.

“If I can find a piece of art that conveys atmosphere...the temperature and time of year by the light and color used,” he said expressively.

He said he also likes to remind people that there are career opportunities in art because art touches everyone’s life constantly. From billboards and magazine covers to the design of fabrics and wallpaper, he said. He also mentioned that there seemed to be an explosion of people who create and design websites.

“People who design cars often have a background in art. ... Architecture is a fine arts. It kind of comes back around to why I like Moultrie,” he said.

He spoke about how he believed that architect Frank McCall had made a huge impact on Moultrie with the beautiful homes that he had designed and with his art collection, which is housed at the arts center.

“You can see what kind of influence someone can have on a community with an art background,” said Ophime.