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Milwaukee Arts Advocate LaShawndra Vernon Champions Creative Access and Cultural Equity Through Greater Milwaukee Foundation Role

LaShawndra Vernon is a driven creative entrepreneur committed to promoting the public good and developing synergistic communities. Through her company, Milwaukee-based Pryme Solutions, the CEO and founder empowers organizations to navigate challenges and achieve positive change.

Vernon works with the Greater Milwaukee Foundation as its arts and culture consultant. Her role has been to identify, cultivate, and amplify creative ecosystems that advance the arts & cultural sector. She works to help ensure that every person in the greater Milwaukee area has access to arts & culture resources as a maker, consumer, educator, and historian.

Vernon was one of the guests on “Milwaukee Made.” The following Q&A is from her chat with show host David Caruso.

Q: You really are focused on making sure that everyone has access to things that provide culture, art, social equity. Why is that so important to you and how do you go about doing that?

Vernon: “It's so important. Growing up here, you could have the arts and culture right at school. In all the schools. I was able to have those experiences with music, with culture, and with art because it was available. But over the years, it has decreased. And so you would see less arts programming in those schools. This is why I became the advocate I became. It's the creative parts of me that allowed me to be great in other areas of my work. So public health, advocacy, community organizing, all of those things required harmony. So having those available to me made me a better professional. The young people that don't have that available to them are not developing key skills. And so I love that in the role that I have here at Greater Milwaukee Foundation, I'm able to support arts education for youth in and out of school to help them develop those talents and those skills.”

Q: What do you think some of our biggest challenges are that we really should be working on?

Vernon: “Our challenges are vast. I think our greatest challenges are focused and rooted in not looking back and seeing what we've already done that was successful that we've stopped doing. I think that we've solved a lot of problems, but leadership has changed. Transition happened and maybe the new people didn't know some of the things that were working that weren't maybe in those leadership roles, but were part of that fabric of community that created those opportunities. I think that's our biggest challenge is remembering that we've done something really cool and it only ended because resources became scarce and we shifted to another resource area.”

Q: What is your role with the Greater Milwaukee Foundation? Tell me a little bit about how you're fitting into that organization.

Vernon: “I am the arts and culture consultant and it's a lot of fun. I'm not in the building every day, but my role is in the community, finding the creative things that are happening, building relationship with possibilities, with creativity, supporting applications that are really going to have greater impact in equity in the creative sector. They're really thinking about what cultural policy could look like to help to grow the pot. If philanthropy is supporting the creative sector, how can that mirror and match some of the already existing programs inside of government that we're not maximizing that we should?

Q: With all of this great energy around the art scene in our city, how does that make Milwaukee an even more awesome place for visitors and people that live here?

Vernon: “We've got some high-quality theater. We've got some amazing experiences. We've got so many museums and so many hidden gems. And I think one of the big things that's happening right now that we should be paying attention to is this archiving and getting the historical stories right about people that came from this place. There's an opportunity waiting for us in that. I mean, having been a six generation Milwaukeean, having a family that told me the stories of my family, but I didn't realize the stories or understand the stories until I became an adult. Those pieces of the story that were coming together about what my grandfather did, what my great great grandmother did, coming over from London and being a seamstress, leaving indentured service, being able to come to the United States and make home the interesting stories that weave how everyone got here, especially for African Americans through the migration is so rich. I am looking forward to an era of the renaissance of those stories in place. It's just an exciting moment to be in. Milwaukee is primed to do great work in this area because we're the other part of the fresh coast. Everybody's always thinking Chicago and I love Chicago, but when you come here, it's a completely different homegrown culture.”

Q: What would you tell a young girl, especially a young black girl growing up in Milwaukee, just to think about for herself?

Vernon: “I think the first thing I would like every little black girl to know is that she is equal and she can do anything she wants to do and there is no limitation to what she's capable of doing. And expanding the boundaries of what's possible for a black girl is expanding the boundaries of the world. I was blessed to have a grandfather where that was the narrative to me all the time. You will always stand out, you will always make statements, you will be remembered, you will be loved. Speaking those words to a child really makes it a big difference when they're an adult.”