By Eric Baxter
Staff Writer

Doris Ballard had been involved in Concord’s arts community for 20 years with the Community Players. She thought she knew the arts scene, had plumbed its depths.

She was wrong, and when she found out her error, she was glad.

CCTV’s Doris Ballard and David Kirsch will be hitting Concord’s roads in the coming weeks to interview and film local artists for the 2006 Arts Telefest.

The idea of linking the city’s community television station with the arts community had been percolating at the back of the minds of the volunteers for years. Concord was an arts destination, anchored by the Capitol Center for the Arts, the Concord Community Music School, the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen Gallery flagship, as well as the New Hampshire Historical Society. In between were a host of smaller, but no less influential, galleries, schools and shops, all catering to writing, visual arts, performing arts, fine crafts and history. Indeed, much of the economy of the city was built on a foundation of creativity.

Ballard, in her new role as the CCTV outreach and development director and with help of the small full-time staff and army of volunteers, decided to take the arts idea off the back burner and light a fire under it.

“I knew right away I had something,” said Ballard. “I would schedule interviews the same day people called and they were all so excited. This was something they wanted.”

It turned out The Friends of CCTV and Arts Telefest was something the community wanted as well. In March, the station will reprise the event, expanded in form and wider in scope, and work towards another success.

The original intent of the event, said Ballard, was to raise money for the three stations and awareness of the arts. The focus of the station is on Concord, but programming does reach into some of the surrounding communities, including Bow. CCTV was formed in 1998, but had a presence as early as the 1980s, with the city’s first cable providers. Volunteers from those times have remained through the station’s high and low points and many serve on the board of directors as well as make up a core of dedicated volunteers. While the station receives revenue from franchise fees, they are responsible for finding their own source of supplemental funding.

“We are expected to find or develop a sustainable annual event,” said Ballard.

The money will be used to buy equipment and update technology with the ultimate goal of creating a “tapeless” station, functioning on digital technology, said station executive director Steve Budkiewicz.

The first telefest was scheduled on April 3 from noon to 9 p.m., on CCTV channels 22 and 6. The initial worries about having too few people to fill the slots evaporated as artists heard about the event and signed up. Ultimately, the station added a pre-hour, and wrapped the event with 15 extra minutes, a small miracle in Ballard’s book, she said.

Three months of filming by production coordinator David Kirsch was melded with two live studio productions for musicians and poets and writers and interviews. More than 100 volunteers – marshaled by Kirsch, Ballard and Budkiewikcz – some working only a half hour, others working for the full 10 hours, shot, edited, aired – there was even a volunteer makeup artist – and did all the behind the scenes work to make the show a success and give time to dozens of artists, many of which called Concord and the surrounding towns home.

“The people who came in felt like they were stars,” said Ballard. “It was a celebration behind the scenes, too.”

The 2006 telefest promises to be no different.

“We are trying to get every artist and gallery and arts organization. The problem we’re facing now is finding the artists and getting recommendations,” said Ballard. “There are a lot of little groups wanting to do this, but they haven’t known how, or it’s been beyond them to do it.”

Interspersed with the taped segments will be interviews with artists and gallery owners and craftspeople and actors by city leaders and state representatives, as well as some of the state’s more notable personalities. Artists are drawn from performing arts, visual arts, literature, traditional arts and filmmaking.

The telefest has set the station on a new plateau for community programming.

“CCTV remains the only station in the state to present this scope of programming focusing on the arts,” said Ballard, who also serves on the New Hampshire Coalition for Community Media, a volunteer group that helps community television stations throughout the state.

In addition to raising money for the station, more than $9,000 last year used to upgrade equipment, the event raised community capital. In the months following the April telefest a few more people volunteered and a monthly spin-off program was created. But the largest response was from the artists, including Jerry Lofaro, a nationally-recognized illustrator.

“He thought this was a great idea. He didn’t need the publicity, but he participated anyway. He wanted to share with kids and parents (through the telefest) what can be done with a career in art and the different ways someone can make a living through art,” said Ballard.

Lofaro, whose work has appeared on national magazine covers and graced Celestial Seasoning boxes, also volunteered to create the 2006 telefest poster.

For Ballard, the telefest represents potential – for artists, for the community and for the station to come together.

“There is so much energy out there, so much interest in the telefest. I keep hearing, ‘this is great, you’re doing a good thing here.’ I think we are.”

Artists looking to participate in the telefest can visit the station’s Web site at concordcctv.com, or call 226-8872 for more information and an application. The station is also looking for volunteers for the telefest as well as day-to-day programming.

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