Helen E. Haynes, artist, teacher, and Philadelphia’s former chief cultural officer, has died at 74
She worked for government, academic, and nonprofit organizations to connect artists and musicians with funding and new audiences.
Helen E. Haynes, 74, of Philadelphia, chief cultural officer under former Mayor Michael Nutter, longtime director of cultural affairs at Montgomery County Community College, award-winning arts and music program administrator, former college studio art teacher, and lifelong artist, died Wednesday, March 26, of cardiac arrest at Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital.
For more than 40 years, from 1976 to her retirement in 2018, Ms. Haynes served as an innovative and effective liaison between her community’s artists and musicians and the public they served. She worked for government, academic, and nonprofit organizations in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Ohio that promoted both expansive and grassroots efforts to connect creators of all kinds with audiences and consumers.
She spent a year and a half in 2014 and 2015 managing Philadelphia’s public arts program and Nutter’s Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy, known now as Creative Philadelphia. From 2001 to 2014, she developed cultural outreach programs and workshops, managed the Science Center theater, and coordinated the popular Lively Arts Series at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell.
She helped shape the city’s redevelopment by collaborating on the Culture Blocks online database that mapped cultural activity and emerging economic trends around the city. She championed artist residencies, neighborhood music and dance schools, community theaters, and cultural centers, and helped create the Philadelphia Cultural Fund in the early 1990s to support them all.
“The future audience is built on the ability of us to provide opportunities for people to encounter culture close to home,” she told The Inquirer in 2014. She told Jump magazine in 2014: “To keep the trees healthy, you have to feed the roots. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
Ms. Haynes arrived in Philadelphia from Washington in 1988 as executive director of the Coalition of African American and Latino Cultural Organizations. She went on to become two-time director of the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts, and managing director of the Full Circle Theatre at Temple University.
“We know that culture builds community. ... Arts are associated with preserving ethnic and racial diversity, and reducing rates of harassment.”
Beginning in 2016, she spent two years as interim director of exhibitions and programs at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. Colleagues called her a tireless mentor, and artists said she was their fiercest advocate.
“She was a beautifully sensitive curator of artists and art performances,” said longtime friend and colleague Pamela Hooks. Valerie Gay, the city’s current chief cultural officer, said: “I’ll always remember her straightforward wisdom and her hearty, unforgettable laugh. Philadelphia was blessed to have her.”
Before Philadelphia, Ms. Haynes worked for a decade in Washington with the National Endowment for the Arts, National Museum of African Art, D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and other groups. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music and art at the University of Michigan in the 1970s, worked at first for the Cleveland Area Arts Council, and taught studio art at colleges in Ohio.
In Philadelphia, she was also active with the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and other organizations. She was especially adept at fundraising and earning grants for programs, and her successes were celebrated by officials and colleagues everywhere she worked.
“People knew and respected her. She was an artist, understood it from within like no one before her.
In 2013, she was named a Distinguished Jazz Honoree by the Philadelphia Clef Club. “I’ve always considered myself an arts worker,” she said then, “because my mission to preserve, promote, perpetuate this great artistic legacy follows me to whatever job I do.”
Helen Elizabeth Haynes was born Dec. 17, 1950, in Cleveland. She grew up with two younger sisters, Brenda and Cheryl, and earned a bachelor’s degree in music in 1973, a master’s degree in painting and design in 1975, and a certificate in arts administration at Harvard University in 1976.
She painted and created works in textiles, and showed at local galleries. She said she knew about the Philly arts scene before she got here after reading about the Philadanco dance company in the New York Times. She had a daughter, Chadra, and lived in Chestnut Hill and Mount Airy.
Ms. Haynes and her daughter took memorable trips to Atlantic City and Wildwood. They liked to walk in Valley Green Park, shop and dine together, and cheer at Eagles games.
» READ MORE: Talking culture with Helen Haynes in 2014
She enjoyed visits to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Painted Bride Art Center, and supported the Center City Jazz Festival and BlackStar Film Festival. “I’m a big jazz fan,” she told The Inquirer.
“She was cool, personable, and she kept it real,” said Tu Huynh, curator of exhibitions and programs for Creative Philadelphia. “We loved her.”
Her friend Ursula Rucker wrote a haiku in her honor: “Voice of real reason/True sister for all seasons/Smile that’s still reaching.”
Her daughter said: “She devoted her life to the arts. But she was my best friend.”
In addition to her daughter and sisters, Ms. Haynes is survived by a nephew, Ronald, and other relatives.
A service is to be at 10 a.m. Friday, May 16, at Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, 230 W. Coulter St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19144.
Donations in her name may be made to the New Freedom Theater, 1346 N. Broad St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19121.