POST FALLS - Kristin Kilmer's career in the arts made her a perfect fit as the new director of the Jacklin Arts and Cultural Center in Post Falls.

After Kilmer's father left the U.S. Air Force, the family moved to Coeur d'Alene. That was in 1976. Kilmer, who was 5 years old when her family moved to Coeur d'Alene, graduated from Coeur d'Alene High School.

"My father was from Spokane so we moved to Coeur d'Alene when he got out," she said, adding a lot of her family was from here as well. She is the niece of Fred Murphy. "My family has been in this area for a long time."

After high school, Kilmer attended the University of Idaho for a while but didn't do well and came home to take acting classes at North Idaho College. That is where she fell in love with acting.

Kilmer married Mike Hasseries, the trombonist for the band Black Happy, and after that band broke up, Kilmer and her husband decided to move away so she could pursue acting.

"I told him I wanted to move to either New York or LA, because that's where actors go," she said, but added that her husband didn't want to live in either of those cities so they moved to Seattle.

She pursued an agent and took a two-day production assistant workshop.

"I think I scraped up my last $175, and it literally turned things around for me," she said, adding that led to a lot of production work and commercials.

Some of her most famous commercials were for Alaska Airlines and Planters Peanuts in the mid 1990s, she said. She said Quentin Tarantino's production company did the Alaskan Airlines commercial.

When she got divorced, Kilmer said she finally made it to Los Angeles, where things really took off for her. She played parts in several shows and movies, and also did a lot of production work in the film industry.

She rubbed elbows with George Clooney while shooting an episode of ER and she also worked with Ryan Seacrest.

Then her son Shawn came along, and she decided to leave showbiz.

"I did a brief stint in Arizona, but then I decided I wanted to come home," she said.

Kilmer went to work for Tom and Theresa Capone, then landed a job with the Coeur d'Alene Summer Theater for three years.

And that's what led to your new job here at the Jacklin Arts and Cultural Center?

Yeah, I wanted to just stay in the vein of the arts community here and in Coeur d'Alene. I was referred to this job and I went after it. I am so glad I got it. It is the best; I just love this building and everything about it ... the organization itself and just the meaning this center has for this community.

It would seem that you are a perfect fit for this job if you take into consideration your work in the restaurants and stuff. Does that help with the cooking classes and stuff like that?

Yes, the catering I've done does help, but classes in the summer are tough to fill, so we will probably take a little hiatus on those this summer. The summer is tough because you are trying to invite someone inside and it's beautiful outside.

Being the new director, it sounds like you are taking a fresh approach to things.

My approach to this, because of some of the recent things that have happened with past directors and recent turnovers, is to go slow and and earn people's trust back. I want to make sure there is a consistency with everything we do. I have a strong connection with the arts community over in Coeur d'Alene and I hoping to build a bridge to that over here.

It sounds like you have some built-in trust with the arts community over there. Could you leverage that to be successful here?

You know it's easy for them to trust me already because they know me from summer theater, so I have a great relationship I have established with them. But again, I am hoping to go slow. I came into this right before summer started and I've been trying to do a couple of camps or things like that this summer, but it's been tough. Everybody is already booked out for the summer or out on vacation and stuff like that, so it's been a little difficult.

So you are kind of building a foundation to get some things going after the summer months, is that what you are planning?

Yes. The fall programming will start kind of slow but at some point I am hoping that we can throw in a concert or something like that, but right now I've got all my dates started for the cooking classes, and we'll have dance classes this fall and the mid-week Monet painting classes. I have a meeting (last Wednesday) with Pilgrims to see if they would be interested in holding a health food cooking class. Hopefully that will work out.

What are some of the new ideas we can expect to see?

Well, I am talking with Kerri Wilfong to get the JACC on the art tour in September but our big function for this summer is going to be our friend-raiser on July 22 - not a fundraiser but a friend-raiser. It's free to the public and it's kind of like an open house. At 6 p.m. we'll have a reception, at 7 p.m. we'll have entertainment and theoretically you'll be out the door by 8 p.m. It's on a Wednesday night, I know it's a school night but the gallery will be full with three artists from the Post Falls High School and they have some amazing stuff.

So is this kind of re-branding or re-introduction to the JACC?

No, I wouldn't say re-branding. The JACC already has a program called Friends of the JACC where our members pick a certain level and say 'OK I am going to be at a $75 level or a $100 level' and they make a donation to the JACC in that amount. It's a one-year membership and then they are considered a Friend of the JACC. Friends get listings in our newsletters and seat preferences at our events and things like that.

So they get a few perks with their memberships?

Yeah, little perks but for the most part this event is to get the community involved more with the JACC. Financially we have to raise about $30,000 a year to keep the budget alive. So this is an existing program the JACC has had for a long time but we are going to revamp it and hopefully add more Friends of the JACC. We have about 100 now, but I would like to get that number up to 200 by the end of the year.

Friend-raiser: Those wanting to attend the friend-raiser event at the JACC are welcome and current members are being asked to bring a friend. The event starts at 6 p.m. on July 22. Aside from the art displays, attendees will have an opportunity to register for the fall classes and enjoy some wine and snacks. Entertainment will be provided by Laura Sable and Bill Wiemuth. The JACC is located at 405 N. William St. in Post Falls.