Word on the street: Hackett hired as new program director of the Asheville Area Arts Council

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Word on the street has it that Asheville poet and teacher Graham Hackett has been hired as the new program director of the Asheville Area Arts Council. Can anyone confirm?

The arts council has seen big changes over the last few months. The nonprofit closed its downtown gallery and sold one of the two Biltmore Avenue buildings it owns. The group last year also cancelled its big annual fundraising event, the Color Ball, and has been without an executive director since Angela Martinez left last summer after about a year in that leadership position. The arts council board, meantime, is working through a three-year process to determine how it can be most useful to the community, according to a recent Asheville Citizen-Times story.

Hackett is known around Asheville as a poet/performance artist. He has worked as the artistic director of Catalyst Productions, an organization that creates arts-in-education programs and multi-media events. And he has also overseen a program called Poetix that works with troubled youths at the Swannanoa Valley Youth Development Center.

The arts council, on its website, has a job opening posted for programs administrator. There’s no announcement of Hackett’s hiring.