/ c By Derek Baldwin THE INTELLIGENCER Quinte Arts Council has a new leader armed with a well-earned Canadian perspective on the arts that should, by all accounts, com- plement a thriving local arts com- munity, say QAC board members. Only weeks after settling into her new executive director position, Carol Feeney says she is still gauging the organization but is already set- ting her sites on strategies to increase the profile of the commu- nity arts group. Feeney, 48, returned last month to her hometown of Belleville from where she left at age 26 to pursue a life on Canada's west coast. It was in Vancouver where the young and ambitious general manager of the Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island worked for five years before moving back to Ontario. For the last 15 years, Feeney worked and lived in Toronto where she honed her skills in various dis- ciplines from arts administration and fund-raising to marketing, spe- cial events organization and com- munications. A former vice-president of Edel- man Worldwide public relations, Feeney was associated with top- drawer arts and charitable ventures, including the noted du Maurier Arts Council with which she travelled tb remote corners of the country. The exposure, she said, to many forms of theatre and visual arts in small and big arts communities across the country offered her a chance to observe a patchquilt of talents, art forms and personalities that contribute greatly to Canada's unique identity. The experiences helped Feeney found her own fundraising and mar- keting company that was affiliated with some of Canada's arts entities, including the National Theatre School of Canada, the Society of Graphic Designers and the Ontario College of Art and Design. Hard work paid off for Feeney, who was most recently presented with one of the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medals for Outstanding Ser- vice. She is also the recipient of the Internet World Impact Award for Communications in 1997. Feeney said she was delighted not only to return home where she still has family and friends, but to also witness firsthand the depth and breadth of arts in the region as rep- resented by the agency. With more than 500 members, she said, the QAC is a central data base and resource for a wide and varied spectrum of creative expres- sion that appears to be very much alive and well in Quinte. "It's amazing the talent and the amount of activities that are going on here," said Feeney. "You're not bored here. There's lot to do from visual arts to ballet to the symphony. That's what keeps me going, the vari- ety, and the challenge of variety." Celebrating that variety of the the arts is the very essence of the QAC. Helping people who do not have a full understanding of the QAC and its many members is also a goal, she said. "That's part of the job we have to do, is to communicate what the orga- nization does, what kinds of artists I we represent. There is a lot of con- fusion out there about who we are and what we represent. I want every person to know what the QAC is and what we do," said Feeney. Feeney replaces outgoing former executive director Marilyn Lawrie. In a statement, QAC chairman Margaret Werkhoven said the board was pleased that Feeney has assumed the top staff position at the organization. "The board of directors is proud and excited to have someone of Carol's calibre, enthusiasm and extensive arts experience to take over the helm of the Quinte Arts Council. While we are sorry to see Marilyn Lawrie go, we look forward to working with Carol as we contin- ue our mission to promote and sup- port the arts and artists in the Quinte area," Werkhoven said. Feeney, she said, was selected after an "extensive recruitment process" which reviewed job appli- cants from Kingston to Montreal. f I n,