The influence of Syd Blackmarr is destined to connect people and communities through the arts for another 90 years, or more, just as she did in her life.
Sydney Carol Willis Blackmarr died July 25, 2023.
A Requiem Mass will be held at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Tifton on August 19, 2023, at 1 p.m., followed by Syd’s own signature reception, what she called her “thank-you party” to honor all those volunteers, colleagues, and friends who helped make her visions a reality through decades.
In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to the Syd Blackmarr Arts Chair of the Tift County Foundation for Educational Excellence, P.O. Box 714, Tifton, GA, 31793; and the St. Anne’s Episcopal Church (Fund for the Arts), P.O. Box 889, Tifton ,GA, 31793.
Blackmarr’s lifetime envisioning arts experiences and making them happen for people of all persuasions earned national acclaim even as she focused on communities in South Georgia.
Honoring her dedication to make the arts affordable, available, and accessible to all people, Tifton’s downtown architectural centerpiece was named The Syd Blackmarr Art Center in 2022.
Born Sept. 4, 1933, in Tampa, Florida, she is survived by two daughters, Amy Carol Blackmarr and Elizabeth Kelly Blackmarr, a grandchild, Maxwell Rose (Sushi) Blackmarr Soucy, and a brother, the Rev. Marshall Burns Willis (Rose) of Thomasville, Georgia.
She was the first graduate of the bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from Wesleyan College in Macon in 1954; swam with the Naiads, a synchronized swim team; was a member of the Scribes, an honorary writers’ society, on the Social Board, and edited the year book. After college, she worked three years at WSB Radio in Atlanta, hosting on-air celebrity interviews and writing commercials, before returning to her native Ocilla. There she helped shape the “Every Child A Winner” program with the Irwin County School system.
Blackmarr earned a certificate in arts management from UNC Chapel Hill, a move that helped shape the rest of her life. Her distinctive ability to draw people together around the arts took root in 1976, when the Arts Experiment Station at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton was established with Blackmarr -- and her vision -- at the helm.
She developed the eight-county South Georgia Arts Alliance a year later, recognized nationally as a unique rural citizens arts network.
The National Endowment for the Arts selected her for the very first Selina Roberts Ottum Award for Arts Leadership in 1991.
The Georgia Council for the Arts twice presented Syd the Governor’s Award for the Arts & Humanities, first in 1981 and then again in 2014 for continuous work building arts opportunities in communities.
She served two terms on the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies, influencing arts opportunities in communities throughout America.
Performances, exhibitions, artists-in-residence, public art projects, arts management development, grant writing, fundraising and cross-community coalition building distinguished the Alliance through Blackmarr’s leadership.
When she envisioned a fine arts festival on and around Tifton’s Love Avenue, a 30-year-tradition named The Love Affair was born, with generations of children and families engaging in the arts together.
Shaping partnerships to initiate the Arts in Black Festival and the Fiesta del Pueblo reflected her passion about the multitude of ways the arts affirm cultural diversity.
Her work to identify the distinctive sense of place created through the traditional cultures of South Georgia built an exhibition and collection of photographs in the 1980s.
The South Georgia Folklife project was intensively revisited from 1996-2005 involving a 41-county region with folklorists in residence documenting folkways. Original negatives of the extensive photo collection are stored at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress and at Valdosta State University.
Retirement in 1999 meant only a change of title, not of focus or passion.
Raising funds, writing major grants and building partnerships led to the restoration of the century-old church in the heart of downtown Tifton – the historic building which now bears her name.
Blackmarr was an active member of St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Tifton, where she served on the Vestry and for many years led the Stephen Ministry. She delivered food boxes monthly through the church Pastoral Care program and participated in book group discussions and Bible study classes.
Blackmarr was an avid private collector of the established and emerging artists she championed through the years. In the end, she was quoted in the Fitzgerald Herald-Leader saying, “We accomplished what we set out to do—create in the community an environment where the arts can flourish and enrich all of our lives. I believe I see that environment.”