by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

Summary: Joe Blake took the reins as executive director of AIA Mississippi in April 2007, a scant two months before the state’s annual convention and a year and a half after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. A transplanted Manhattanite, Blake brings an innate love and respect for architecture to the position, which represents the state’s 309 AIA members. Six months into the job, here are his thoughts on AIA Mississippi, the state’s architecture, and 90 percent humidity.

Education: I am a graduate of the City College of New York, CCNY, with a degree in liberal arts. I spent four years in the military before I went to college. I was an Air Force medical evacuation corpsman for four years, having spent one year in Vietnam, and then used the G.I. Bill to garner my post-secondary education. I’m the son of Irish immigrants to this country—my mom and dad emigrated as teenagers. I was born and raised in Manhattan, and my formative years were spent in Spanish Harlem. It was a good place to grow up.

From NYC to Jackson: One of the things about moving down south for a native New Yorker is that I never had an upper respiratory ailment until I moved here. I’ve been here almost 10 years and I’ve not gotten used to the humidity. I enjoy the opportunity of walking around in short sleeves and short pants in February, but boy do we pay for it in June, July, and August.

Professional background: After college, I began an acting career, which some people find fascinating and others raise their eyebrows, but I did professional theater for about a half a dozen years. I was in the original touring company of Evita back in 1979. I did lots of musical comedy; I did television commercials, feature films. One odd one I did was Damn Yankees, in which Joe Namath played the lead character of Shoeless Joe Jackson, and it stunk. But, in realizing that a career in the theater was not going to happen long term, I began working in sales, marketing, and public relations as a way to eat. I used that information, education, and experience to work at various marketing firms in Manhattan, culminating in a permanent, albeit temporary, position doing marketing and promotional events for Citibank, which was a tremendous opportunity.

After Citibank, we moved down to Jackson, Miss., and I began working in the not-for-profit area with the Mississippi Museum of Art as their assistant director of development for membership and marketing. We did a tremendous Andrew Wyeth exhibit called Close Friends, in which each of the subjects of the pieces of art were African-American friends of Andrew Wyeth’s. I think, to this day, it is still the only art exhibition exclusively done of Andrew Wyeth’s African-American subjects. I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Mr. Wyeth, his son Jamie, and his wife, and at the sneak preview I was introduced to Morgan Freeman, who did the tour audio. And before then, I had the opportunity of being chauffeur and visitor’s guide for Pat Oliphant, the political cartoonist. We presented his work at our museum, and he did a personalized caricature for me of Gerald Ford that I have framed. It was a very interesting position.

Path to AIA Mississippi: Just before coming to AIA Mississippi, I had my own public relations and media consulting service, working primarily with not-for-profit organizations and associations. My wife is a graduate of the Auburn University School of Architecture, with a degree in interior design, but I’ve always been interested in the arts. The architecture in New York is a palette. I was introduced to the position of AIA Mississippi executive director by a friend of mine who is an architect here in Jackson. The feedback I’m getting from the membership is tremendous and I’m really encouraged by it. It’s like [former editor of Harper’s magazine and North Toward Home author] Willie Morris said, there are only two places that are worth anything: New York and Mississippi.

Getting the feet wet at AIA Mississippi: It’s been great. It’s allowed me the opportunity to delve into the history of AIA in Mississippi, the history of the American Institute of Architects itself, and then to be an eyewitness to the plans, the progress, and the synergy that is taking place here in Mississippi, post-Katrina.

Some of the challenges that I’m facing are trying to get up to speed with where the membership would like to go, what path they see AIA Mississippi moving on, and how it impacts the built environment in Mississippi and architecture in the state as a whole. I’m just trying to understand issues and then put out a plan to continue going in a positive direction.

Early accomplishment: In the Blueprint for America that Mississippi had proscribed itself to become involved with for AIA150, they had wanted to engage the public, which is one of the mandates. A way of doing that was proposed before I arrived, but not implemented. The plan was to come up with a list of buildings that the members of AIA felt would be worthy of being listed as Mississippi’s favorite architecture. They polled the membership and whittled a list of about 120 buildings down to 32. I worked with our Web master to upload an image and descriptive of those 32 buildings or sites. We used America’s Favorite Architecture as our working model, so we mirrored what AIA national did.

We pre-planned the media, contacting newspapers and radio. Our AIA champion, Michael Grey Jones, AIA, was on the Mississippi Arts Commission radio station giving a 60-minute interview about AIA150. One of our Fellows, Jim Healy, was on the NBC television affiliate here in Jackson, which broadcast around the state promoting the Mississippi’s Favorite Architecture vote. I was able to acquire a full-page feature article in the largest state newspaper, the Clarion Ledger, announcing that we would be soliciting online voting for Mississippi’s favorite architecture, and AIA Mississippi President David Hardy, AIA, was on the NBC affiliate down on the Biloxi Gulf Coast to let the general public know that they were to come to our Web site and cast their vote for what they felt was Mississippi’s favorite architecture.

The voting began July Fourth and ran through Labor Day to give it a good length of time. We had over 23,000 individuals visit the Web site to cast a vote. It was so well received by the general public that we’ve had something like 50 articles. We made the L.A. Times travel section, and we even made Lighthouselovers.com, because one of our favorite sites was the Biloxi Lighthouse.

Favorite Mississippi building: Longwood. The reason is that 15 years ago this month, with the wonderful woman whom I was courting at that time and is now my wife, I came down for my very first visit to Mississippi to visit her mom and dad. We went to the Natchez Pilgrimage Fall, and the very first building I went to was Longwood. You have to go take a look at the building itself. It’s a very touching story as well. I enjoy Longwood.

Favorite New York City building: Well, that’s hard. The Chrysler Building has really got to be it, if I had to choose, or Yankee Stadium. The Empire State Building I think is the iconic symbol of New York, but the Chrysler Building is the crème de la crème of Art Deco architecture in the City of New York. The Chrysler Building is just beautiful. It’s a work of art.

Working with Mississippi’s architects: It’s been very interesting. It has been a learning and enriching experience working with the older and more well-established members; and working with the newer, younger members and some of the interns has really enriched me, even six months in. I really want to plug into their energy and their vision to move AIA Mississippi a little bit more broadly. The association and the component is going to rely on those individuals in a greater capacity as we move forward.