MANSFIELD – Longtime retail executive Susan Duncan Gentille, of Bellville, has been named Development/Marketing Director at the Mansfield Art Center on Marion Avenue, George Whitten, art center Executive Director, announced Friday.
Gentille will lead the art center’s promotion of classes, workshops, membership, Gallery Shop, school services, and events, raise funding to support operational goals, and help position the organization as the premier art center in north central Ohio.
Gentille, an artist herself, began her career as marketing director for Skilken Properties in Mansfield, and later served 10 years as sales manager for Lazarus department stores in Ontario and Columbus and nearly 20 years as assistant store manager for Kohl’s department stores in Ontario and Delaware.
The new art center Development/Marketing Director concluded her term in October as president of the Mansfield Fine Arts Guild, and currently serves on the advisory committees of Mosaic Financial in Mount Vernon and the Richland County Foundation Women’s Fund. A former Catalyst advisory council member, she is second vice president for the Richland County Democratic Women’s Caucus.
An Ashland University graduate who also studied fine arts and art education at Ohio Northern University in Ada and the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Gentille has earned marketing certifications from the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, and from Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.
About the Mansfield Art Center
The mission of the Mansfield Art Center (MAC) is to make visual art relevant to the lives of all in north central Ohio. To accomplish this, The MAC brings visual art to all of us through exhibitions, programming, classes, workshops, and creative experiences; provides educational outreach through programs, lectures, tours, and school services, and provides support and services to artists.
The Mansfield Fine Arts Guild, doing business as the MAC, was founded as a non-profit organization in 1945. In 1969, Clara Louise Black, the daughter-in-law of Mansfield industrialist and Ohio Brass founder Frank Black, donated eight acres of land to the Guild for the art center building used today at the corner of Marion Avenue and Millsboro Road, Mansfield.
Renowned Cleveland architect Don Hisaka designed the art center building, construction began in 1970, and the Mansfield Art Center opened in 1971. The contemporary building design was nationally recognized during both the design stage and after the MAC was built and is considered among the top architectural buildings in Ohio.
The MAC’s emphasis on member programming has changed over the past several years, as it has moved from a member-centric art center to one that encourages non-members and community members, in general, to embrace art, recognizing its changing role and impact on our area’s youth and economic development.
Thus, this new inclusive emphasis has encouraged thousands to create, visit, and become influenced today by the MAC.
The art center is currently conducting its first major capital campaign, called Art Rising, to raise nearly $2.7 million in funding for a new education wing, pavilion for events and rentals, and renovations to the nearly 50-year old building. The campaign is going well and will conclude at the end of December. The art center will announce the results of the campaign in January.
