Milledgeville Scene 20 Under 40 | Page 46

leslie peterson

BY LEAH S . BETHEA

In early 2020 , a group of community members met at The Marlor House to discuss what the Milledgeville area was lacking in terms of art . Largely , the discussions kept going back to the fact that people felt there was something missing in the local literary world .

It was a realization that Milledgeville Allied Arts Outreach Coordinator Leslie Peterson considered odd given the history of the community and Georgia College ’ s excellent writing program . And so , from those discussions , The Write Space was born . Peterson counts coordinating the project as one of her proudest accomplishments in her current role .
Facilitated by Dr . Kerry Neville , a Fulbright Scholar and member of Georgia College ’ s faculty , The Write Space is a group of community members who meet usually once a week to discuss writing , working together and going over their pieces .
“ Our ultimate goal is that hopefully , folks feel confident and comfortable enough that we can work toward doing some sort of little publication or a journal for community members to submit their work to …,” Peterson says . “ That ’ s near and dear to my heart because I ’ m an English major .”
When talks of the program began , organizers thought they would have one meeting and see how it went . It went well ; so well that there was standing room only , and writers ran out of surfaces on which to write .
“ We had no idea that it would take off and be as popular as it has been when we first started it ,” Peterson says .
A graduate of Georgia College , Peterson has been in her position at Milledgeville Allied Arts for a little more than three years . Though she wears many hats through her job , her main role is connecting people to the organization . To do that , she often goes out into the community to speak at events or invites people in to see what Allied Arts is all about . In addition to The Write Space , she organizes other groups and workshop meetings .
Peterson says that working with the arts in a rural area is a unique position . Most often , she says when people think of the arts , they think of more metropolitan areas like Atlanta , but she says Milledgeville is in a position to offer unique opportunities and experiences .
“ So , it ’ s really exciting to be part of such a kind of a rare thing that ’ s here in a pretty small community where we can not only provide those experiences to people , but provide them at a lot of times free , and if not free , very low cost ,” Peterson says . “ Being in the art program at Georgia College as an English major
… in the academic community , you kind of meet a lot of people in the area who are very intimidated by art . They think it ’ s not for them , or they don ’ t realize that the benefits are pretty major for anybody participating in arts , or they think it ’ s a very elite sort of thing , and in some areas , it truly can be . But what I really love about my job is bringing the side of art to people that is accessible and available to everyone and provides mental health benefits and just generally community coming together , getting to know each other and building culture benefits .”
Building the confidence of local artists is what she counts as the most rewarding part of her job . She says many times , people will come in and hardly want to talk about their art , much less share it with anyone else . Allied Arts works to get them confident enough to show their pieces in an exhibition or perhaps enter a contest .
“ And then just to see them kind of bloom and be more confident in talking about their process and sharing their work , that ’ s super rewarding to me ,” Peterson says .
A newer aspect of her job is one that has been unexpected , but the pandemic required that she learn about video editing , and now she counts it as a favorite part of her role .
“ When I came into this position , I knew pretty much nothing about working with video as far as filming , editing , publishing and then distributing that to the community ,” Peterson says . “ It has benefitted the community in ways I didn ’ t expect . It has made our programming more accessible to people who can ’ t get out of their homes – maybe they don ’ t have the gas money , maybe they don ’ t have transportation , maybe due to the pandemic , they ’ re just more comfortable sitting in their homes – but we ’ ve been able to reach people through a lot of additional programming .”
Moving forward , Peterson wants to continue to push her own limits and work to bring more in terms of Art to the area .
“ I always want to keep challenging myself ,” she says . “ I always want to be curious and learn new things and work on taking projects to the next level .” Having grown up and spent most of her life in Milledgeville , it makes it even more special to work to make a difference in the place she calls home .
“ I just really love this community and all that it has to offer ,” she says . “ I want to help see Milledgeville grow into the future and develop the Art and culture scene and get surrounding communities to realize what Milledgeville has to offer so they will come and visit us as well .”
46 Milledgeville Scene | 20 Under 40 2022