By Kevin Lee Associate Editor

Is it mountain or molehill? Well, that depends on whether you’re looking down from the top or up from the bottom.

If you have any connection with Mobile’s arts realm, you have undoubtedly heard the news about the recent change in personnel at Space 301. In late October, curator Barclay McConnell was fired by the contemporary arts center that falls under the direction of the non-profit Centre for the Living Arts. McConnell was hired by the Centre a mere eight months before her dismissal.

The reasons for termination vary. To hear McConnell talk, it was obvious she had a difference in vision with her employers, in particular Centre CEO and President Carlos Parkman. She came to loggerheads with the administration over the differences between their expectations and those of the arts advisory committee. McConnell claimed her resolution in those fights eventually did her in.

The CLA said the curator was fired for “disloyalty” and insubordination.

McConnell believes a change in focus began after the death of former CLA Board Chairman Palmer Bedsole over the summer. She fears the new leadership doesn’t share Palmer’s embrace of the bold.

Others feel McConnell misinterpreted differences in leadership styles. “Palmer was good, but his style focused more on the ‘top down’ type of management,” said Mobile Arts Council Director Bob Burnett. “Ann (Bedsole-Palmer’s widow and new CLA board chairman) is actually more egalitarian in style. She seems to be ready to empower the arts advisory committee more.”

Rumors in arts circles, though, are feeding McConnell’s inclinations. Gossip has already reached Birmingham and returned to the Port City that Space 301 is entertaining the idea of shifting focus to “Sunday painters,” folks who see their art as a hobby and not a call to profession. How true that buzz proves is yet to be seen but it seems unlikely the 301 arts advisory committee would let such happen.

Artifice attempted to contact Parkman to allow for her version of events. Centre for the Living Arts representatives refused to comment citing CLA policy restricting discussion of personnel matters.

Several arts luminaries easily recalled McConnell expressing discontent with Parkman in company they wouldn’t deem appropriate. Word got around. “This is a small town where people like to talk,” said McConnell. Having gone to high school here, she should have been more adroit.

Next thing you know, Barclay was asked to join Parkman for lunch at the Bienville Club where she was summarily dismissed.

The Press-Register, which has extensive ties to the CLA and Space 301, ran an extensive and glowing profile of McConnell not long after her arrival. However, the newspaper was initially mum on McConnell’s firing, eventually running a front-page story on the incident almost two weeks after the fact.

Advisory committee member David McCann has been selected to fill McConnell’s position for the moment.

And the Port City is about to lose another ostensibly bright and creative soul as McConnell seeks employ elsewhere.

The thing that stands out most to Artifice about the ordeal is the continual cloak-and-dagger atmosphere that surrounds Space 301. It was supposed to be provocative, but not in this manner.

When the plans for Space 301 first hit the public, our interviews through the local arts community uncovered denizens who expressed reservations but only through the cloak of anonymity.

When the nudity flap of this past summer unfolded on the pages of Lagniappe, Artifice once again encountered hushed voices and reticence at public disclosure.

Now, this latest bit of subterfuge and intrigue arises. Once more, key players are frightened of making their feelings known. One could attribute it to a reluctance to undermine Mobile’s greatest chance at creating that “big city” progressivism in a nascent arts district struggling to overcome the banality of “magnolias and sailboats.” That perspective is understood and respected in its nobility.

However, it feels as if retribution is the real dread.

Enough. Enough with the whisper campaigns, the nods and innuendo. This behavior is not only self-destructive but juvenile. Why can’t focus stay on the art itself without resorting to the political tendencies of the parochial? This is part of the “small town” mindset Mobile has to face down if it hopes to make the jump to something of more relevance and substance.

There’s an excellent exhibit in place at Space 301 right now that deserves the energy and focus this adolescent drama robs from it. The “Spy versus spy” routine only robs from the art.

As an old cliché goes, “There are three truths to every story. Your truth, my truth and the whole truth.” And the whole truth is that Mobile commits civic suicide every time this pubescent behavior arises.

Adults are supposed to be open. Adults should respect the opinions of others without undermining them. Mature people don’t embrace or manipulate fear.

Perhaps it’s time for us all to grow up just a little.

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

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