A self-described bohemian, Bianchine works for the city to link art and business to create a better place.
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Jeffrey C. Bianchine, Holyoke's creative economy coordinator
HOLYOKE – Jeffrey C. Bianchine talks with filmmakers about getting movies made here. He plans to hang banners of local art, with a twist, from light poles in the spring.
He’s working on a $353,000 fund-raiser to restore City Hall’s stained glass windows and participates in monthly mixers with artists and entrepreneurs.
Being the city’s first creative economy coordinator is the inside job this self-described outsider said he’s finding he was born for.
“I was the bohemian, starving artist and then this opportunity came along and I said, ‘Are you kidding me? I can do that from the inside rather than the outside?’” Bianchine said.
The job, as envisioned by Mayor Alex B. Morse, entails tying together the various arts and cultural activities happening here to highlight Holyoke’s creative endeavors, forge links with businesses and boost economic development.
Bianchine, 33, a photographer, lives on Main Street in an area some consider to be a growing artists’ enclave. It means he’s able to walk to work, his desk being a few blocks away in the city Office of Planning and Economic Development, 1 Court Plaza.
“Holyoke is a great city to walk in,” Bianchine said.
The job pays $43,000 a year.
Bianchine is a native of Long Island. The son of an aircraft mechanic and a math teacher, he said his family moved to Massachusetts as his father got jobs in New Bedford and then at Bradley International Airport, in Windsor Locks, Conn., with the family settling in East Longmeadow.
He graduated from Ithaca College, in Ithaca, N.Y., in 2001 with a bachelor’s in fine arts majoring in film, photography and visual arts. He began Paper City Pictures, a portrait studio company, on Main Street in 2009.
Bianchine began as creative economy coordinator Sept. 24. A fan of the city’s architecture and weathered settings, Bianchine said he is in touch with the nonprofit Berkshire Film and Media Commission in Great Barrington about the movie backgrounds Holyoke offers.
“A period scene could be shot at Wistariahurst Museum right now,” Bianchine said.
To promote local artists, Bianchine said banners will be displayed from high fixtures on downtown streets. The banners will have artists’ works but with a high-tech function: Incorporating a new smartphone app, or application, called Aurasma, users could aim smartphones at the banners and recognition of the banner image would prompt digital content, such as videos or animation.
A lot of work remains in terms of bringing certain businesses here, he said. For example, while Holyoke is loaded with potential for movie-makers, accommodations like hotels, restaurants and cafes must be available before a filmmaker commits to shooting somewhere, and at the moment it’s hard to get a cup of coffee or a muffin downtown, he said.
“It would just make us a better draw for that kind of project,” Bianchine said.
The Massachusetts Cultural Council recently awarded two grants here for $30,000 that will help Bianchine’s work. The first grant, of $20,000, went to the city to assess market demand for artist space and help property owners who are converting spaces for arts, entertainment or other “creative sector” businesses, Bianchine said.
The second grant, of $10,000, went to the Canal Gallery & Artists’ Studios, 380 Dwight St., to maintain and replace utilities, he said.
Such outside funding is helpful in another way given that the City Council in approving the position of creative economy coordinator made it subject to a two-year “sunset clause.” The law establishing the job is automatically repealed in two years if the job has been found not to generate enough revenue to pay for itself, council President Kevin A. Jourdain has said.
Bianchine said he has embraced the idea of working under such skepticism.
“I’m never been one to keep score, but now I have to and I’m kind of enjoying it because it’s causing me to be more productive,” Bianchine said.
Morse said Bianchine has impressed him.
“He has a grasp of the creative economy better than anyone I know,” Morse said.