Uncrowned Community Builders

Celeste Lawson has nearly twenty-five years of experience in non-profit management and arts administration. Currently, she is the Executive Director of the Arts Council of Buffalo and Erie County, an organization that provides a variety of services to artists and arts organizations throughout Erie County, with supporting programs in Niagara, Allegany, Chautauqua, and Cattaraugus counties. Prior to her appointment at the Arts Council, Ms. Lawson was Executive Director of the King Urban Life Center, a local historical preservation and adaptive re-use project in Buffalo's east side.

Ms. Lawson is a past Chair of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) Special Arts Services Panel, a former member of the Erie County Cultural Resources Advisory Board, a current member of the City of Buffalo Arts Commission, a former City of Buffalo Cultural Review Board panelist and a past Vice Chair of the Cultural Leadership Group which established the Cultural Incentive Funding Program, a demonstration pilot in partnership with State and local funders as well as the Western New York business community. In 1990 and 1991, respectively, she served as Arts Committee Co-Chair and Chair of First Night Buffalo's annual city-wide drug-free cultural celebration.

She has served as a site evaluator for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Expansion Arts Program and on a NEA Challenge Panel. Ms. Lawson also has served on NYSCA's Technical Assistance Committee, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra Marketing Committee, the 1990 Curtain Up! Entertainment Committee, and is a founding member of the Buffalo City Ballet Auxiliary Guild.

Celeste is a Board member of Project FLIGHT, a literacy program, and is a member of the steering committee for the Western New York Family Literacy Consortium. She was appointed as a delegate to the United Nations' Non-governmental Organizations (NGO) Region Five European Economic Commission Conference held in Vienna, Austria, in 1994. She also was one of eleven women delegates to the International Women's Conference held in Beijing, China in 1995. She and delegation members presented on family literacy, cultural and social economic development, and adaptive reuse of historic properties.

Other local activities include her service as Co-Chair and Chair respectively of the United Way's Women in Governance Project in 1999 and 2000. This project prepares women for service on non-profit boards of directors. She has been a member of the Jubilee Fund board, a program that assists the non-profit community with financial assistance through low interest loans. She is an elected Vice President of the Board of the Western New York Grantmakers Association, and served three years on the Leadership Buffalo Board of Directors, of which she also is a 1995 graduate. In 1997, Celeste was elected to the Board of Directors of the New York State Alliance of Arts Organizations. Celeste also was elected to the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Corridor, where she serves on the Cultural Committee. The Atlantic Corridor is an organization whose mission is to develop trade business, educational opportunities, cultural exchanges, and technological relationships in nations along the Atlantic Ocean. In December 2000, Buffalo Mayor Anthony M. Masiello appointed her to the Board of Directors of the Market Arcade Film and Art Center.

Ms. Lawson came to Buffalo after living in Michigan, Georgia, and Western Europe where she spent her formative years. She graduated from the Frankfurt American High School in Frankfurt, Germany, and from the Liberal Arts Program of the Stratton Academy and College in Bedford, England. Since moving to Buffalo in the late 1970s, she completed Bryant and Stratton's Secretarial Administration Program; courses in grant and proposal writing from Canisius College; the Public Relations, Advertising, and Marketing certification program from Millard Fillmore College at the State University of New York at Buffalo; Modern and Ethnic dance courses from SUNY at Buffalo, where she also taught dance classes as part of the Millard Fillmore Lifelong Learning Program; and Arts Administration at Empire State College.

An important part of Ms. Lawson's life is writing poetry and fiction. She writes with the Women of the Crooked Circle, a well-published group of Buffalo women writers. In April 1997 she published a collection of poems reflecting her visit to Beijing, China called I Was Born This Way. That same year, she was the featured poet for National Poetry Month and National Library Week in a program sponsored by the American Urban Libraries Program and the American Academy of Poets. The series was called 30-30-30 (30 readings in 30 days in 30 cities). She is a contributing writer for Her magazine, a publication that focuses on women's issues and a columnist with Artvoice. Celeste is a popular local poet, and is a regular anchor reader with Just Buffalo Literary Center. Her poetry has appeared in The Buffalo News, Earth's Daughters and other publications.