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1 8 C T I N N O V A T O R S , 2 0 2 2 SHELLEY >> BY TOM VERDE e walls of Rev. Dr. Shelley Best's office at the Greater Hartford Arts Council are lined with her own artwork and prayers, which, in her estimation, amount to the same thing. "When I paint, I pray," says Best, pastor of the Redeemer's A.M.E. (African Methodist Episcopal) Zion church in Plainville, and, since April 2022, CEO of the Greater Hartford Arts Council. "e Creator is creative," she explains. "And so art is creativity that's expressed and definitely very spiritual." Among the devotional paintings on her walls are selections from her series "What Is Black?" ey feature Mondrian-inspired patterns of squares and rectangles in a variety of flesh tones from black to tan to off-white, reflecting the diversity of the human race. Rev. Dr. Shelley Best uses faith and art to help raise Hartford's profile Community Connector at diversity, she believes, has more power to unite than divide. "Creativity offers a common ground for people who turn vision into reality, whether or not they agree religiously," she says. Best calls such individuals "soulpreneurs." Helping them get the support they need in order to thrive and breathe life into the com- munity, she says, is her primary job as CEO of the Arts Council, an organization that helps fund a wide variety of arts enterprises in Hartford and the Greater Hartford region. ey range from the venerable Wadsworth Atheneum to Sanko- fa Kuumba, an arts education program celebrating the culture of the African Diaspora, to the Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz and Puerto Rican Day Parade. "My role is to help people engage in the arts and connect with one another as a community through the arts, and that way we can bring back vitality to the city, which is still recovering from the pandemic," she says with frank and optimistic determination. Best, 60, grew up in an artistic household in Norfolk. By the time she was in high school, her family moved to Torrington. School trips to Hartford to see productions at the Hartford Stage Co. Rev. Dr. Shelley Best leads the Greater Hartford Arts Council. PHOTOS | KEITH CLAYTOR