About Michigan Maven
Michigan Maven Creative Associates believes in the power of values-driven arts administration that focuses on joyfully serving and creating community with patrons, partners, and employees.
Small and mid-size arts organizations make a difference in people’s lives every day, but the work is hard and can be lonely.
Michigan Maven aims to lend support, guidance, and perspective to help these organizations and their teams thrive.
Values
People first
Without good people, we don’t have art or arts organizations. Our employees, artists, patrons, and friends of the arts should be cared for in our work.
Collaboration
We achieve more when we work together in thoughtful and genuine ways.
Community
Our institutions should focus not only on building for the communities we have now, but the communities we want to have 50 years from now.
Inclusive Leadership
Good leadership is inclusive leadership. Leaders should be intentional about asking for and utilizing the talents, perspectives, and lived experiences of everyone on their teams, regardless of title or seniority.
About Katie Trzaska-Miller
Founding Consultant
Katie Trzaska-Miller is the founding consultant of Michigan Maven Creative Associates and a co-host & producer of the There’s No Business Like…Podcast. Katie graduated from St. Norbert College with a BA in Political Science, Communications, and Theater Studies, and has been engaged in the Michigan performing arts community for more than 20 years. Katie has served as President and board member of the Michigan Presenters Network since 2017, and as Sr. Manager of Community Engagement at the Midland Center for the Arts, Artist Relations Manager at Interlochen Center for the Arts, and the Executive Director of the Playhouse at White Lake in an arts admin career spanning 15 years. She is a theater-maker and passionate advocate for arts education, accessibility, inclusion, and family programming in our sector.
Katie’s experience as a young arts leader running a historic 94-year old theater, and then subsequently building her roles at other institutions from the ground up, fuels her passion for small venues, connecting colleagues, mentorship, and creating access to the arts for everyone.
Lightning Round with Katie
Favorite Play/Musical: It’s a tie between Peter and the Starcatcher and Come From Away!
Favorite 90’s Boy Band: N*SYNC, of course
Pets at Home: Two rescue dogs, Wally & Gus
Favorite Arts Impact Moment: How do you choose just one? In the winter of 2020, I hosted photographer Elizabeth Herman at the Midland Center for the Arts for a visit with the debut of her photography exhibit, The Women of the 119th Congress, which was based on a photo series that ran in the New York Times and then became a book. I took Elizabeth on a series of school visits, and I managed to get us into a visual arts classroom in a middle school I had never been able to partner with before, and it was a great visit. Later that evening at the Center, a student and her mother from that particular classroom approached Elizabeth, and the mother shared that her daughter was so inspired by Elizabeth that she begged to attend the lecture that night, even though she wasn’t a photographer and they had never attended anything at the Center before. It was such a profound moment of connection on so many levels - and that’s why I do the work I do.
