On April 3, the South Carolina Arts Commission added Columbia resident and USC alumna Heidi Carey to its board of commissioners, an appointment she said is the perfect blend of her career as a lawyer and cellist.
Carey is the newest addition to the board. A class of 1991 USC Honors College alum, she works as a mortgage attorney, she said.
The commission is a state agency created in 1957 to help artists present statewide arts opportunities to South Carolina residents and visitors, commission communications director Jason Rapp said. It includes a board of commissioners who oversee many of the operations of the commission.
"There are nine of them, and from all throughout the state," Rapp said. "And so they get appointed to oversee our budgeting and then making sure that we're doing the things that the legislation that created us wants us to do."
Commissioners are chosen by the governor for their involvement or support of the arts, and are then confirmed by the state Senate to serve three-year terms supporting young artists in South Carolina.
The commission also works to make the arts more accessible to South Carolina students who might not have originally had the opportunity, commissioner Bhavna Vasudeva said.
“Sometimes it's the only way out for people,” Vasudeva said. “You know, we have a very rural state, and people are not always blessed. And when you have a component like art, it helps them. It's a wonderful escape from your everyday life.”
As a commissioner, Carey will work alongside eight other governor-appointed commissioners in order to spread art to K-12 students in South Carolina, help distribute funds, approve the budget and approve grant recipients.
Carey said she hopes to uplift the voices of the board in order to continue funding the arts in South Carolina with her appointment.
“My goals as the commissioner is to support the board, the professionals, the staff of the arts commission and to be a conduit between the staff and the legislature and the governor," Carey said.
Carey's experience at USC allowed her to explore all of her interests, including both cello and finance, she said.
"I've always been interested in arts management since I was a music major in college," Carey said. "I went to law school and tried to go into arts management in my 20s."
Carey was a music and business student, which combined her love of cello and her need for more technical classwork, she said.
“I started as a performance major, and it was not enough,” Carey said. “I needed more. I'm just kind of nerdy and I like school, so I wanted more classroom work. So I did a minor. I did a performance certificate in cello and I did a minor in business, because I thought I wanted to get into arts management.”
Another formative part of her USC experience was being in the Honors College, Carey said.
“That helped because of the small classrooms,” Carey said. “There was a lot of writing, a lot of critical thinking and a lot of very interesting classes.”
Along with school, Carey also played cello for the band Treadmill Trackstar, which worked with Hootie and the Blowfish, she said.
Vasuveda believes that the arts bring people of all different beliefs together, through the industry and business they can bring to South Carolina.
“Arts bring a lot of industry to our state," Vasudeva said. “When a big company like Boeing or BMW or Volvo want to put a plant, they want quality of life for their employees, and that usually involves the arts, because they want things to do for their children and their wives and things outside of work that they're all interested in, and art is a uniter of industry, of politics.”
Carey said she believes preserving and continuing the arts is vital to preserving the history and culture of the state itself.
“I think it's a matter of history, of culture," Carey said. “Preserving culture, preserving history and not becoming too monochrome. So many levels and colors are out there that we all need to experience.”