When Jed Dodds moved to Key West in 2012 to become executive director of The Studios of Key West, he hardly expected to be immersed in construction projects. But that’s exactly what happened.
Dodds had already spent 13 years as artistic director of the nonprofit Creative Alliance in Baltimore. He arrived in Key West with his wife Molly, their daughter Sadie, and a deep belief that art should bring people together and strengthen our understanding of each other.
Almost immediately, he started working with The Studios’ board to find a permanent home for the growing organization. Once they decided on the former Masonic Temple at 533 Eaton St., construction began, with Dodds spearheading the extensive overhaul. Later, he oversaw the transformation of the next-door property into the PEAR House, which offers residency apartments for visiting artists. Along the way, he joked, he learned enough to practically qualify as a general contractor.
Today, The Studios of Key West is a vibrant cultural hub that includes dedicated space for exhibitions, performances, classes, local artists’ studios and rooftop sunset gatherings — as well as the flourishing Books & Books.
Dodds guides a staff that shares his commitment to Key West’s cultural community. He finds great satisfaction in seeing artists — like Stephen Kitsakos, creator of the opera “A Thousand Splendid Suns” — achieve widespread success after early support from The Studios.
On a recent afternoon, Dodds discussed his work and creative focus with the Keys Weekly.
Wasn’t it an incredible change for you to move to Key West after nearly 20 years in the sizable city of Baltimore? I have always thought of myself as a city guy, so if I was worried about anything, it was that I would get bored here — and that has certainly not happened. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by how much I’ve loved the small-town nature of this island, where you can commute to work on a bike and see people you know on the street every day. If the entire country was built on the scale of Key West, we’d have a much healthier society. It’s hard to imagine going somewhere else with the same quality of life we have here.
What drew you to The Studios of Key West? The place I worked at in Baltimore was in some ways quite similar to The Studios. We had taken an old movie theater and converted it into an art center, with a theater and classrooms and galleries and a residency program. So I saw this group coming together in Key West and immediately had a vision for what that could look like, because I’d just done it.
How would you briefly describe The Studios? It’s an art center where creative things happen. There are classes and a theater and exhibitions, and studios for working artists and a residency program. Artists need time, space, money and an audience — and we’re able to provide a framework to funnel those resources to them. They do their thing and it reverberates back out into the community, and leaves you with a community full of people who understand themselves and the world they live in a little bit better.
When people visit The Studios, or attend an exhibit or event there, how do you want them to react? Everywhere you turn on this island, there are discoveries to be made — and that’s the experience I want people to have here, too. As well as how interesting it is, I want people to be impressed by the quality. I feel like we’re an organization that can hold up its head against anyone else in the country.
I think you’d have to go to a city probably 20 times the size of Key West before you’d find the cultural life comparable to what we have here.
What do you like best about what you do? I love the fact that every day is different and the work genuinely never gets boring. We can be with a group of kids in the gallery, and then a couple hours later have an artist talk happening — and then maybe a concert in the evening. It’s just this constant creative churn, which is really fun.
Now that Key West and its cultural community have been your focus for more than a dozen years, what’s your overall impression? This island knows what it is, and we know who we are. We’re comfortable in our own sense of identity, which gives us a position of strength to project that out in the world. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we have such a rich cultural life, because we’re standing on such solid ground. The island isn’t built on shifting sands; it’s built on coral rock — and that’s good to have under your feet.
