Jamie (Schumacher) Kalakaru-Mava traded the warm beaches of Southern California for the snowy lakeshores of Minnesota. Her goal was to find an affordable place to live where arts, culture, and community could coexist. She found all that and more, but it took a few months for what she found to thaw out completely.
While starting the arts nonprofit Altered Esthetics, she worked closely with community members in Minneapolis to support the burgeoning Northeast Arts District. She headed to the University of Minnesota for a master’s degree in innovation in nonprofit management (which she draws on to encourage nonprofit boards to conquer their fear of trying new things). She continues to speak at seminars and workshops, sharing insight about cultural districts, creative leadership, and rough transitions.
While working as the executive director the West Bank Business Association, Jamie helped secure Cedar-Riverside’s role among Minneapolis’s city-designated cultural districts. She now works with LISC Twin Cities, building the capacity of the more than two dozen cultural and creative districts of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Also a visual artist and an accomplished writer, her written work has been featured by Pollen, the Star Tribune, and the Minnesota Women’s Press. Her book It’s Never Going to Work was released in 2018 and details the ups and downs of starting an arts nonprofit. (Spoiler: it did work, at least for a little while.)
Jamie currently lives in Bloomington with her partner, Nick, their two daughters, a rescue pup named Rufus, a still unnamed betta fish, and four chickens. While she is available for hire, she would also like to warn you that she dabbles in the dark arts with only limited success. She is available for speaking engagements if you sign a waiver, carry liability insurance, and keep a fire extinguisher on-site.