Mary Frieden, 30, North Liberty
Executive Director @ Summer of the Arts

If ever anyone writes the story Mary Frieden’s life, they have to include the shoes.
Physical shoes, the kind you find in a mall, were part of what brought Mary to the Cedar Valley. And shoes of the metaphorical variety are what keep her here.
Mary talks about wearing many shoes the way most do about hats. And these days, Mary wears a lot of shoes as the Executive Director of the Summer of the Arts, a series of events held each year from May to August in Iowa City, including art and jazz festivals, concert and movie series and a fundraiser.
For almost two years now, Mary has served as the one and only full-time employee for the Summer of the Arts, doing fundraising, marketing, human resources, volunteer management, t-shirt folding, handling sponsors, organizing port-a-potties and everything in between.
It’s work that she calls her “dream job.”
“It was just the perfect job for me,” Mary says. “A perfect fit.”
Mary grew up in an artistic household in the San Francisco Bay area, with a mother who worked as a painter and who encouraged her children to pursue their own abilities. Mary pursued hers to the University of South Dakota in Vermillion before a visit to a friend convinced her to set roots in the Cedar Valley.
“It was the perfect mid-sized city. Right in the middle of everything,” Mary says. “And it was close to five malls.”
During the summer, Mary doesn’t find herself at the mall quite as often, as she works with the five events under the Summer of the Arts umbrella (the Iowa Arts Festival, Iowa City Jazz Festival, Friday Night Concert Series, and Free Movie Series came together in 2005. Sand in the City, a fundraiser for the other events, is new this year). But Mary doesn’t do it all alone. The individual festivals retain creative control (translation: no she cannot bring in your favorite band), and a veritable army of volunteers “make everything work. They run like a machine.”
And her favorite part is watching it all come together.
“The first Friday Night Concert Series I stood over the crowd at the Sheraton and saw thousands. Kids covered the playground,” Mary says. “Seeing that makes everything worthwhile.”
It’s those crowds that Mary sees as serving the Summer of the Arts’ major goal.
“We need to build our neighborhoods again,” Mary says. “It’s part of our mission to build community. We can do this by connecting people at our events.”
To that end Mary is working year round—and her job really does entail more work than one could guess between summers—to plan events like technology workshops for artists to teach them how to take their art and submit it to fairs and festivals digitally.
Also recently, the Summer of the Arts (read: Mary) has become the go-to organization for festivals-related advice in Iowa City, including the Iowa City Farmer’s Market, the University of Iowa Student Fair, and Fry Fest.
“That wasn’t a shoe we thought we’d be wearing,” she says. “It doesn’t feel like it ever slows down.”
DID YOU KNOW?
Part of the reason Mary loves living near Iowa City is how welcoming the city is of her vegan lifestyle. Other cities gave her strange looks when she asked for vegan items on the menu, but in Iowa City, she says, many restaurants already have those options listed. “It’s a totally different filter,” says Mary.
WHAT SHE CAN DO FOR YOU:
Want to volunteer for any of the Summer of the Arts Festivals? Mary’s always looking for new people to help out. “We want fresh faces, people who love art and culture and want to learn to take on those roles others in the community have played.” Find out more at www.summerofthearts.org