COEUR d'ALENE - As the new manager of the Coeur d'Alene Arts and Culture Alliance, Kerri Wilfong hopes to take the agency to the next level.

Wilfong started at Alliance in September of last year, and has already begun to rebrand the agency and gain more community exposure for the alliance.

The 42-year-old stepmother of three grown children said she has the energy and drive to get that done.

"I was a young stepmother, and therefore I am a young grandmother, and now I am a young empty-nester," she said, explaining her husband is 10 years older.

Wilfong, who was raised in Coeur d'Alene, left the area during her 20s but came home to be with family and settle down.

"I am part of the Jacobson family. We have family all over the place in Coeur d'Alene," she said, adding her family owns Jacobson Tree Service and her uncle is Post Falls Mayor Ron Jacobson.

Wilfong said she plans to spend the coming year promoting the Alliance and helping people understand the agency's role in the community.

And while the agency plans to launch a new website later this week, the alliance has a current website atwww.artsincda.org.

The Arts and Culture Alliance is 10 years old, but it doesn't seem like many people know you even exist.

I agree. That's been my experience too. People think a lot of the things we do are done by the chamber of commerce or the downtown association.

They don't realize that there is an arts organization behind the things we are doing.

Why was the Alliance formed?

The initial reason it was formed was around the gallery owners. They wanted an umbrella organization basically to promote Coeur d'Alene as an art destination and to organize the gallery scene, kind of. They wanted to pull their money together to print things like the art walk map and promotions and advertising and the art guide.

So they wanted their own mini chamber of commerce?

Kind of. It was a subcommittee of the chamber to begin with. In 2003, under Jonathan Coe, he and Steve Gibbs, who owns the Art Spirit Gallery, they were the two who started talking about the need for this type of organization, so it was a subcommittee of the chamber for about two years until they could form a nonprofit.

So they just operated under the chamber's nonprofit status until they could break away on their own?

Yes, they needed to become a 501(c)(3) so they could write grants. They couldn't do that under the chamber's nonprofit status. So we have our own fiscal responsibilities.

Art Walk is one of the most popular alliance programs, so what are some of the other programs you manage?

Music Walk. Every second Friday of each month of the year it is one or the other. Music Walk is January through March, and Art Walk is April through December.

It originally started as Art Walk, and then they didn't do it January, February and March because the galleries wanted a break. After a couple of years they said "OK, so what if we do something with music," focusing on boosting more eating in the restaurants and more drinking in the bars, to have Music Walk. So that's were that came from, and then there are six other things that we do.

I want to talk about those, but on the Music Walk, do the galleries bring in the music?

Sometimes. For example this Music Walk, (which happened last Friday), Angel Gallery and Studio 107 will bring in music, but Art Spirit signed up as a supporting venue so they won't have music.

Music Walk tends to be more about the restaurants and other businesses besides the galleries.

You mentioned six other programs you folks manage.

Yeah, so Arts Buzz is a monthly thing too. It's a collaborating thing. We meet the first Friday of every month in a big conference room (in the chamber of commerce building).

We get people coming from the opera, the symphony, the theater. Sometimes we get art teachers, or people doing art classes. We get artists, people from the library, Gizmo sometimes come, the Jacklin Arts Center. Anybody that really works in the arts or cultural fields.

So once a month we run that Arts Buzz meeting. It's just time for everyone to talk about what they are doing and pass out their fliers, or they are going to apply for a grant and they are looking for someone to co-write it with them.

So it's like a networking thing?

Yep, it's putting faces to names. Like the new artistic director for the Coeur d'Alene Summer Theater, Thad Davis, he comes to Arts Buzz to meet people like, say, the Coeur d'Alene Symphony, or the Jacklin Arts Center so they can plan co-productions and stuff like that.

How does the Alliance make its money to operate?

Membership has been a small part of the budget, but we are hoping to make that a larger part of the budget this year. We get grants from the Idaho Commission of the Arts. They are smaller grants but they are super helpful.

We also sell sponsorships for our different programs, and then we rely on individual donations from supporters.

What is your annual budget?

$37,000 last year, and I am part time - one staff person. There was a time when they had two staff persons at the most, but I think they were part time as well. Depending on what we can get going, I could see there is definitely enough work to do and opportunity to take advantage of, so (there may be a chance for expansion).

It seems like in the last decade or so, the community has started to embrace the arts.

Yes, I would agree. Do you remember when the feather sculpture went up on Northwest Boulevard, and people were all saying: "What are we spending money on feathers for?" And now a majority of people in this community are saying: "OK, this is a cool thing."

It really does kind of enrich the overall feeling you have about your town, and what the tourists say about your town, and what they remember when they leave town.

What were some of the other programs?

Summer concert series in Riverstone - every Thursday in July and August down in the Riverstone Park.

Then there is the Kids Draw Architecture. That happens once a year. Depending on how many kids sign up, we break them up into pods and they walk around downtown with an architect and look at architecture, and then they sketch what they saw. Then the kids get to turn in two of their favorite sketches and we publish them in a calendar that we sell.

Then there is the artist's studio tour. That is also once a year. Artists submit their interest to be on the tour and the idea is to go and see their workspace. You get kind of a hands-on demonstration of what the artists have to work with.

Music for the Wise. That program happens mostly in the winter. We pay musicians a small stipend to play in retirement homes. So that is just a way to bring music into the retirement centers, and it gives the musicians a small stipend, but really they just like to get the exposure and play in front of an audience that is so eager to hear them play. It's like really rewarding and they love that.

And the last thing is Art From the Heart, which is really just a label on the month of October.

October is National Arts and Humanities month, so that month we do a lot of marketing and coordinating. We put out a calendar of all the special arts events that are happening in the month of October, and a lot of the arts agencies plan stuff specifically to be under the umbrella of Art From the Heart.

The Idaho Humanities Council has their annual dinner in North Idaho, usually in the first week of the month.

The City of Coeur d'Alene does its Mayor's Arts Awards, and we do our member appreciation social.

You guys do this all from behind the scenes. Many of these programs are popular, but many people don't realize this organization is facilitating that.

That's what I keep hearing. Ever since I got hired people have been saying I thought the downtown association did that, or I thought the chamber did that, and I am like, 'OK we have an identity problem.'

When I got hired they were already in a rebranding process. We just started using our new logo in January, and we are working on our new website. I think we will be done with that at the end of next week, but we are going to do a really cool thing on that website.

We are going to put a directory on that because since I've been hired, I keep getting phone calls from people who are looking for things like a harpist, or they say I am looking for a costume designer or who does art restoration. I get all sorts of these calls, so I thought we should have a directory. Something where you can click on the website and find a rock band, or look for a face painter for your kid's birthday party.

Do you have to be member of the Alliance?

That's the idea. You have to be a member to be in the directory. We won't vet the members who are in the directory. We'll just say OK, here are three people who say they do costume design, so at least you can get pointed toward what you are looking for.

So the other piece, I kind of look at what we do as threefold: One is bringing the arts community together and we do that with Arts Buzz, and then creating events to get artists recognized, and then the third thing we want to get involved in is kind of advocating for the artists.

How so?

It would be cool to be the resource for someone who wants to know how much they would expect to pay for a rock band, for instance. You know, should they take breaks, kind of what's the standard protocol for being kind to your artist.

Or if I wanted to commission someone to paint a portrait of my dog, what might I expect the range to be. There would be a big variance on that, but at least you can get an idea on what to expect to pay.

We would like to put together something to be an advocate for the artists.

It sounds like you guys are pushing forward rebranding and trying to increase your exposure in the community. Is a membership drive going to be part of that?

Yeah, we probably won't call it drive, but definitely by the time we do the Art Walk in April, I want to have way to do on-the-spot membership sign-ups at Art Walk, also at the Riverstone concerts. I can just swipe someone's debit card on a "square."

Like, myself personally, I have gone to Art Walk for years, and I have gone to a bunch of the concerts at Riverstone - just as a community member who loves to do those things.

It wasn't until I was researching this job listing that I realized I could be a member. First of all I didn't realize this was the agency that did those things and I could pay to be a member.

For $40 you can say thank you for doing all of these cool free events for the community. I mean I would have paid that, and I know all of my family and friends would do the same.

If everyone pitches in just a little bit we can keep this stuff going.