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C T I N N O V A T O R S , 2 0 2 2 1 9 BEST during these years not only endeared the city to her but put to rest earlier ambitions of pursuing a career in cosmetology. Aer majoring in persuasion communication and minoring in poetry at Central Connecticut State University she ultimately went on to earn degrees at Yale Divinity School (Master of Divinity, 2000) and Hartford Seminary (Doctor of Ministry, 2010), now e Hartford International University for Religion and Peace. It was during her years at Hartford Semi- nary that she began to paint, expressing herself theologically on canvas. By the time she graduated, her path to the pulpit merged with the focus of her doctorate: faith-based community development — the involvement of faith-based institutions in the economic revitalization of local communities — and its outgrowth, social enterprise. "Social enterprise is a business that a non- profit might have where the profit of the busi- ness helps to fund the nonprofit," she explains. New solutions to old problems One of her first social enterprise projects, be- gun when she was still in graduate school, was the resuscitation of the Hartford-based Con- ference of Churches via the creation of the 224 Ecospace, an arts, health and wellness center in Hartford's Asylum Hill neighborhood. Founded in 1900, the Conference is one of the oldest ecumenical organizations in the country. Yet by the time Best was appointed CEO in 2001, the Conference's business model — financial reliance on member churches — was no longer viable. Seeking new solutions to an old problem, Best was inspired by the work of the Rev. Floyd Flake, former pastor of the Greater Al- len A.M.E. Cathedral in Jamaica, Queens, New York. An early proponent of faith-based community development, Flake helped transform the church's once-blighted neighborhood into a thriving, self-sustaining community beginning in the 1980s and '90s by establishing a private school, credit union, health clin- ic, and affordable housing, through a combination of volunteer- ism, investors, and the support of city officials. Acting on the advice of a fellow entrepre- neurial minister who once told her, "If you want to change a city, buy it," Best — armed with testimonial support from local residents and a half-million-dollar bond grant from the state — negotiated the purchase of the old Hartford Courant Arts Center. Once home to the Hartford Ballet, Hartford Symphony and Greater Hartford Arts Council itself, the building sat vacant for several years by the time the Conference made an offer of $387,000. e bid was well below the $1.5 mil- lion asking price, but was nonetheless accepted. at, to some degree, was the easy part. "How do you rehab a 30,000-square-foot building without money? One room at a time, one bucket of paint at a time. We had volunteers renovate that building, painting, patching, re- pairing, room by room," Best recalls. e end result was a handsome, multiuse arts and cultural center with an art gallery; dance, theater and yoga studios; meeting rooms; and a library. ese enterprises not only help fund the Conference of Church- es, now headquartered at 224 and refocused more on community building and self reliance, but have been "significantly responsible for changing" what has historically been one of Hartford's most crime-ridden neighborhoods, says Jackie McKinney, chair of the Asylum Hill Neighborhood Association. "Since 224 first got started it has grown and blossomed in tre- mendous ways, far more than I originally thought it would," says McKinney, whose organization now meets in the facility once a month. Diversity, equity and inclusion With this momentum and her position as CEO of the Arts Council as platforms, Best is eager to spread the gospel, as it were, of social enterprise to other arts and other organizations through- out the city and Greater Hartford region, especially among more traditional venues. "Let's face it, in a place like Hartford, the arts have been very Eurocentric, and that doesn't represent the people who live here. We want art to represent a community so that all people get to see and experience their stories in galleries, on stages, or through music," Best says. e recently created Arts Council consultant practice, Reenvi- sion Arts, is one way to achieve this goal, she says. e initiative helps arts organizations gain new audiences — critical to sur- vival — by pivoting from traditional themes to those focused on "DEIAJ," which Best says stands for "diversity, equity, inclusion, access and justice." It's a vision and an approach shared by many Hartford residents. In a May 2020 city government survey, commissioned in antic- ipation of Hartford's 400th anniversary in 2035, "arts and culture" and "diversity of its people" were overwhelmingly identified as the Capital City's top two greatest strengths. To its credit, the Wadsworth Atheneum, one of the city's most prominent repositories of Western art, has recently taken it upon itself to acknowledge this shi by hiring Afghan native Abdul Ha- mid Hemat to help diversify the museum's art collection and dis- play examples of Asian, African, pre-Columbian and Indigenous art currently in storage. On a visit to the museum in September, Best was delighted to encounter a work by Kehinde Wiley, an African-American realistic portrait painter who frequently depicts and empowers Black peo- ple by making them the central figures of paintings rendered in the classical style of Old Masters. Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin is not surprised by the results of the survey, and, like Best, believes that investment in the arts is a clear pathway to the city's recovery and revitalization in the wake of the pandemic. "We feel it is important to put arts, artists, and creators in Hart- Continued on next page Rev. Dr. Shelley Best CEO Greater Hartford Arts Council Education: CCSU, Yale School of Divinity, Hartford Seminary Age: 60