After growing up on the rugged terrain of a Nevada ranch, Caroline Croswell understands how to work the herds of people moving in and out of the Oxford Community Arts Center.

Croswell recently became the first full-time director of the center, and has the task of transforming the old dusty building into a palace, showing the rich history of the site and, most importantly, highlighting Oxford’s dynamic artists.

“I came to work at the center because of the wonderful grassroots, volunteering and can-do attitudes of the people in this community,” Croswell said.

Croswell is getting to know her surroundings and making connections with volunteers. People intimately connected to the center think she is a great addition to the team because of her willingness to look to the finer details.

“It’s nice to have someone in your corner to really listen to you. Caroline is even working to get us a doorbell so we know when our students have arrived,” said Lauri Traveline, a musician who currently rents one of the studios at the center.

Croswell has had a long history of service to the community. She worked as the executive director of the Preble County Historical Society and gained talents for beautifying the community through her work as a past president and current vice president of the Des Fleurs Garden club, a service-oriented organization.

The Des Fleurs Garden Club created the garden at Inloes Park on the corner of Locust and High streets in Oxford, where members spent many Thursdays cultivating the garden. They moved on to landscaping the arts center. In the spring of 2006, the garden club completed its first phase of its landscaping for the center.

Enthralled with the idea of gardening on the art center’s grounds, Croswell has facilitated in a proposal that would create a children’s botanical garden with handicap access on the grounds of the center.

Her home life is just as full of artistic dynamics as her professional life. Her husband graduated from Miami University Oxford with an art education degree and masters degree in studio art, and is presently a sculptor.

“My walls at home are covered with really beautiful abstract pieces, photography, bits and pieces of sculpture by my husband and even Shoshone Native American art from Nevada,” Croswell explained.

Early on, Croswell understood how to deal with different environmental factors. While her nearest neighbor was nine miles away, she had four brothers, a sister and loads of cousins to keep her busy.

“We were hooligans. Not to mention all the pets I had,” Croswell said. “I had lizards, goats and I even made a pet out of a steer.”

It wasn’t all fun and games though. The ranch housed 26 horses that worked 21,000 breeding cattle.

Through her interesting background, she contributes an outsider’s point-of-view to a historical site of Oxford.

For more information about the Oxford Community Arts Center, call 524-8506.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Exterior Doors, Landscaping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.