Alexandra Montgomery doesn't get a chance to put brush to canvas these days. Instead, her passion for the arts finds an outlet in a very different medium: the business world.
As executive director of the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in Toronto, Ms. Montgomery, 46, has applied her business skills to transforming the museum from a niche, private collection with a modest profile into a world-recognized specialty museum and cultural destination for a vastly expanded audience.
Now she is being honoured among women who have shaped Canadian thinking and culture in the arenas of Arts and Communications by the Toronto-based Women's Executive Network in its annual list of the top 100 most powerful women in Canada.
With an early interest in oil painting, particularly portraiture and still life, Ms. Montgomery pursued fine arts at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., in the mid-1980s. But the Toronto native says she quickly realized she had "a stronger suit on the administrative side" than as a painter. She switched to art history and classical studies, determined to be a museum or gallery director, to "bring business skills to the arts."
‘I am not an academic, curator or educator. I see myself as an entrepreneur,’ says Alexandra Montgomery, head of the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in Toronto. (RYAN CARTER FOR THE GLOBE AND MAIL)
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Her involvement with the Gardiner began back then, with a summer job working as a clerk in the shop of the newly opened museum.
There she met philanthropists George and Helen Gardiner, who had founded the museum to showcase and share their collection of ancient American artifacts and European pottery and porcelain. When Ms. Montgomery went on to do an MBA in Arts Administration at York University in Toronto, she interned in the Gardiner's administrative offices.
After graduating, she worked in communications, marketing and fundraising, largely in non-profit arts organizations in Toronto, including the Canadian Opera Company. She returned to the Gardiner as director of development and communications in 1999, then advanced to become interim director and finally executive director in 2000, when the job of curator became a separate position under her.
"I am not an academic, curator or educator," she says. "I see myself as an entrepreneur."
The Gardiner at that time was already undergoing a transition, with the severing of ties with the Royal Ontario Museum necessitating a new vision for the institution. Ms. Montgomery developed a strategic plan that guided the museum through its $20-million expansion, secured a $6-million grant from the government SuperBuild program, and headed a fundraising campaign that has brought in more than $11-million to date.
The reconstruction of the museum, which included the addition of a third floor, required it to close from 2004 to 2006. For Ms. Montgomery, the intensive project was a welcome focus at a devastating time: Six months before it began, her husband, John Cook, former president and chairman and long-time member of the board of the Canadian Opera Company, died suddenly of a heart attack.
"This project gave me something to get out of bed for," she recalls, adding that the museum staff supported her through a difficult time. "It's just all hands on deck with something like this."
The renovation resulted in additional gallery and special exhibition space, an education centre for ceramics classes, an expanded shop and a new restaurant, called Jamie Kennedy at the Gardiner.
From its inviting new piazza and entrance to the floor-to-ceiling windows installed in the galleries, there was a commitment to make the museum more accessible to a public not accustomed to viewing ceramics as fine art.
The "destination" shop and especially the restaurant — which is rented out for special functions three to five evenings a week — play a major role in generating earned revenues, which have increased to 43 per cent from 16 per cent of the Gardiner's budget. (Government funding accounts for just 10 per cent of the operating budget, compared with as much as one-third at other arts institutions.) The work of fundraising is not over, with a gap of as much as $3-million left from the expansion.
A certified fundraising executive, Ms. Montgomery says that being entrepreneurial means being creative about different ways to make ends meet.
"You never know in any given year where a certain percentage of funding is going to come from," she says. The Gardiner's memberships have increased to 1,200 from 1,000, with a goal of 3,000 over the next couple of years.
She says success has come through the involvement of the museum's management team, 20-member board of directors, volunteers and staff, as well as the continued support of Helen Gardiner, who made a significant gift toward the capital campaign. Ms. Montgomery herself also donated an amount equal to her annual salary. "You have to lead by example," she says.
Karen Sheriff, president of Bell Canada's Small and Medium Business Group, joined the Gardiner board in 2002 and is now its chairwoman. She says Ms. Montgomery brings to the museum a perfect mix of artistic and cultural acumen and business skills.
Through the massive expansion, and despite many obstacles, Ms. Montgomery blossomed into a strong and talented leader, Ms. Sheriff says.
"She understands what it takes to create a great public institution but also to run a great business," she says, adding that Ms. Montgomery's initiatives in areas such as the revamping of the shop and restaurant are allowing the Gardiner to develop its historic base while attracting new audiences and supporters. "At the end of the day you have to balance your budget."
In addition to her demanding job, Ms. Montgomery is a member of the Arts and Media Advisory Board for the Schulich School of Business at York University, the International Community of Museums, and the Canadian Art Museums Directors Organization.Ms. Montgomery, an ardent cook and film-goer who describes herself as now "happily partnered," says her background in arts and business has been helpful ("it's nice to speak both languages"), but she hopes to return to painting some day, likely when she retires.
For the immediate future, she says she and her museum staff will be "living the dream" to bring new people to the Gardiner and realize the full potential of the institution.
"We articulated the vision, we have realized the vision," she says, "Now we have to live it and live it well."
Special to The Globe and Mail
