Elsabe Dixon

by Joyce Wilburn Balancing History, Art, and Life

Having those skills and knowledge paved the way for Elsabe to direct Danville’s only art and history museum that celebrated the 45th anniversary of its founding on September 13, 2019, the month after she became its director. Since that day, she has invited all to become Museum members by saying, “This is an interactive space for people to come together under an umbrella where they can freely have conversations about local concerns and also experience something new from outside.” Her hope is that when visitors are exposed to something different, it can trigger new and better ways of thinking and planning for the future while building the community’s history.

DMFAH Director Elsabe Dixon and Education Facilitator Wenn Harold talk to a P.C.C.A. Head Start class after their morning of Museum activities. They were accompanied by teacher Jasmine Bratton, assistant Jordan Evans, and driver Julia Wiles. Photo by Michelle Dalton Photography

orn in South Africa, educated in America, and equipped with copious work experience, Elsabe Dixon, a married mother of three adult children, is leading the Danville Museum of Fine Arts & History into a new direction of inclusiveness and community building. B

On a rainy February day she sits behind her desk in the Executive Director’s office and explains, “Everyone needs access to culture and a cultural center. If you live in isolation from big cities, you might not have access to one. You don’t see the big exhibits if you can’t travel. Every town needs a cultural center where people come together to celebrate their own culture and be exposed to other cultures.”

With a passionate voice and a consciousness formed by years of international travel and living in other countries, she continues, “The Museum just received a Virginia Humanities grant to redo our (introductory) video to be more inclusive---Confederate history, Civil War history, civil rights history.” Thinking about the former home of Major William Sutherlin that forms the center of the Museum, she continues, “We also want to concentrate on the building, not just one era of its history but what was on the property in the past including Native American history.” She explains that the 1858 mansion was built on the crest of a hill where anyone standing on it could see in all directions. “It’s logical to think that other groups used this exact campus as an outpost to see for miles and miles,” she comments.

Elsabe’s love of history is equal to her love of art. A native of Dundee, South Africa, she studied graphic design and ceramics at Pretoria Technicon in Pretoria (now known as Tswane), South Africa. Her future husband, Rick, was also in Pretoria working at the American Embassy as a member of the Foreign Service. Their paths crossed and after six months of whirlwind dating, the young couple married and moved to Chatham, Virginia, Rick’s hometown. Both worked at Chatham Hall. “I was the youngest ever faculty member teaching ceramics,” she recalls while smiling at the memory, “and Rick was head of the history department.” Over the next several decades, the couple welcomed three children, lived in Germany for a year, and moved to Northern Virginia for twentyeight years. Elsabe squeezed in time to earn a bachelor’s degree in art from Averett College in 1991 and a master’s degree from George Mason University in cross disciplinary studies. Art classes at GMU were combined with history, literature, science, or other subjects to create a cohesive narrative about something specific. She also gained museum experience working for the Glenstone Foundation and ran a non-profit in Washington, D.C. for a decade or more. Balancing the Museum’s dual mission of presenting history and art while making community life better is a challenge that Elsabe Dixon is energetically accepting and encouraging you to support.

• For more information, visit 975 Main Street, www. danvillemuseum.org, or call 434.793.5644. See story on page 11.

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