This story was originally published by ArtsATL.
When Camille Russell Love started her job as the executive director of the Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs in 1998, no manual fell from the sky explaining how to do the job. Nor was there anyone to orient her. “It was like a baptism of fire, in more ways than one,” she recalls.
But with her entrepreneurial spirit and business experience, as well as her love of the arts and the city, she went about learning the ropes and ultimately grew and transformed the department she took over.
Artistic initiatives under her watch included the Atlanta Jazz Festival, the Chastain Arts Center Gallery, the annual Elevate arts festival, the city’s public art program, Gallery 72 downtown, grants for artists and various other notable cultural initiatives.
Credit: Courtesy of Atlanta Mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs
Credit: Courtesy of Atlanta Mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs
Now, after more than two decades on the job, Love has decided to step down later this year. When she does, she will have an emeritus role within the city as the cultural affairs senior advisor to the mayor. She won’t weigh in on her successor until the search committee filling the position has come up with finalists.
“Ms. Love has served the people of Atlanta with the utmost integrity and character,” Mayor Andre Dickens said in a news release. “Her creativity and vision have played a pivotal role in elevating the perception of cultural and performing arts in our community.”
Love started to think about stepping down in 2023. She will be 75 in January 2025 and a year ago celebrated her 25th year with the city. “That is almost a third of my life,” she says. “I have done my service — and I look at this as a service, a public service.”
Atlanta has always been a city that has energized Love, even when she was growing up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and later attended Wake Forest University. While her friends were spending their spring breaks on beaches, she’d visit Atlanta. Yet she didn’t relocate immediately. Accepted to Duke University’s law school, she attended for a semester but hated it. She moved to Atlanta in 1974 and soon landed a marketing position at IBM. She would work there for 15 years.
A self-proclaimed art junkie/collector who likes to visit museums, tour cities and collect first editions by Black women writers, Love took a leave of absence from the company at one point to be a loaned executive to the first National Black Arts Festival. It changed her life.
“I had so much fun and it was like I had found my tribe,” she says. After leaving IBM, she founded For the Love of Art, a consulting firm for visual and performing arts, and opened her Camille Love Gallery in Buckhead. Eventually she collaborated with former Mayor Bill Campbell, working with artists to design T-shirts for his campaign.
Credit: Jason Getz / [email protected]
That made an impression on Campbell, who later asked if she wanted to lead the Office of Cultural Affairs. “He needed someone he knew and trusted and said every time I see you, you are talking about something cultural,” Love says. Because she had her own business to tend to, she turned down the position twice — but when Campbell sent his wife Sharon to make the case, she relented.
When she began the job, however, the previous director was not on board to guide her. “Those early days were … interesting, I’ll say that,” Love says.
“I think there is a misconception that when someone is appointed to a political office, they will do nothing and it will be business as usual. I am not that kind of person. I came in and I saw some things that were not up to snuff. I knew what I had to do: get control, be a leader, establish some modes of operation and then tackle the issues that were presented to us. My decision was that [some] things had to change.”
Credit: Courtesy of Mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs
Credit: Courtesy of Mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs
Something she noticed quickly that first year was a real discrepancy in art access for minority audiences in Atlanta. She made it a priority to suggest to arts organizations that they could expand their reach by beefing up and diversifying their boards and programming. She’s quite proud now of the Atlanta cultural community and its inclusive environment.
One of the programs her office started was the Cultural Experience Project, a collaboration among the Atlanta Public Schools, the cultural community and the philanthropic community. Launched during the 2005-06 school year, the program ensures that every child in the Atlanta Public Schools system from pre-K through 12th grade has free access to an annual field trip to a cultural venue.
A beta test with fifth graders at Atlanta Cyclorama in Grant Park wasn’t very successful; Love discovered many students did not attend because transportation was not covered. Her team fixed that problem and expanded the program the following season.
The program’s first official visit was to the Atlanta Civic Center with a group of eighth and ninth graders for the opera “Porgy and Bess.” The kids arrived and, as Love remembers, were typical teenagers — throwing things, chewing gum and screaming across the room. That changed quickly, though.
“When the opera started, within five minutes you could hear a pin drop,” she says. “I looked at Mayor (Shirley) Franklin, and we knew we were on the right track. These children who didn’t have this exposure could come to a place like this and appreciate the experience. We just knew we were on the right track, opening up experiences that many children in the Metropolitan Atlanta area had [access to] but which Atlanta public school children did not.”
The Atlanta Jazz Festival was founded in 1978 by Mayor Maynard Jackson. For Love, keeping the Festival going has also been rewarding. Every subsequent administration has supported Jackson’s dream that the festival stay free, but doing so has been a challenge.
When Love first took over responsibility for it, the Festival was supported by hotel-motel taxes and no other funding was needed. But when the economy went south, her office had to figure out how to raise funds. The city had to get legislation passed that allowed the event to have sponsors. General Electric and Coca-Cola came on board the first year, keeping the festival free, with major performers on the lineup. “We have a commitment to presenting jazz — new jazz artists and established ones — and making sure it’s a free and family oriented,” she says.
In all, Love has worked with five mayors — Campbell, Franklin, Kasim Reed, Keisha Lance Bottoms and Dickens. When new teams have taken over, she’s had to start almost from scratch.
“When a new administration comes in, you have to orient them — in subtle and not so subtle ways — to what is valuable and how culture plays an important part in the life of the city. There have been times during my tenure where the Office of Cultural Affairs was on the cutting block because some people did not understand the value. They were making budget decisions not value decisions.”
She won’t say which administration was in power when her office was in limbo but does note that the mayor at that time stepped in and made sure the cut didn’t happen.
Credit: Josh D. Weiss, Special to AJC
Credit: Josh D. Weiss, Special to AJC
Love says there’s a misconception and a lack of understanding of what her job is. “I think a lot of people think it is fluff, that it’s just about going to openings, but it is a real government service responsibility,” she says.
During her tenure, Love served on the 1996 Cultural Olympiad Committee, making sure Atlanta’s culture was well represented, and received the Chevalier Order of Arts and Letters from the French minister of culture and communication in 2017.
She has served on numerous area boards and received other awards, including the Cultural Warrior Award for Arts and Learning in 2013 from the National Black Arts Festival and, in 2015, a Luminaries: Champions of Arts in Education award from the Woodruff Arts Center.
She also successfully navigated her office through the COVID pandemic by holding virtual meetings with staffers, recording 31 artists as part of a virtual Atlanta Jazz Festival and supporting area artists with grants.
While the city’s arts offerings, such as the Atlanta Jazz Festival and street art/murals, are considered world class, no one event or offering during her tenure has been a personal favorite. She enjoys them all.
“This has been a labor of love for me,” she says. “I come in every day excited about what we are going to accomplish. Some work is more tedious and not as exciting as being at the Jazz Festival or [the public art program] Elevate, but everything is exciting in its own way. To keep art organizations viable, help individual artists find their way, to see art transform the community, it’s all special to me.” But one moment stands out — getting to dance onstage with Nina Simone at the 23rd Atlanta Jazz Festival.
Love says she wants to transition gracefully and without any disruption. “I knew I was not doing another term. I had to think about the mayor and [hopefully] his next term and give him time and flexibility around who would replace me, and [be willing] to orient that person and get them acclimated.”
She is an early riser and is in her office every morning answering emails by 8:15 a.m. She prides herself on her integrity and work ethic.
Even though she is stepping down, certain projects will still need her help. The World Cup is coming to Atlanta in 2026, some art initiatives need evaluation, and the city needs to figure out how it’s moving forward with a major bond allocation.
So while she looks forward to the days of sleeping in at home and catching up on the hundreds of books she has collected in her library, a full retirement just isn’t for her. “I’m not that girl!”
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Jim Farmer is the recipient of the 2022 National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Award for Best Theatre Feature and a nominee for Online Journalist of the Year. A member of five national critics’ organizations, he covers theater and film for ArtsATL. A graduate of the University of Georgia, he has written about the arts for 30-plus years. Jim is the festival director of Out on Film, Atlanta’s LGBTQ film festival, and lives in Avondale Estates with his husband, Craig, and dog, Douglas.
Credit: ArtsATL
Credit: ArtsATL
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