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58 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 11.17 founder David Jones. "I didn't realize he had this whole friggin' Humana situa- tion, but he was a really nice man and he gave me some money," Davenport says. "I guess knowing these wealthy people is helpful," Davenport says, often projecting a kind of nonchalance when mentioning his connections to influen- tial people, "but I don't think — once you meet (Owsley Brown II's son) Ow- sley, he's a spiritual character. Laura Lee is. ey're all like that. ey're magical people and they're into the arts." Skeptical of the school's potential for success, Dav- enport's wife remained in Baltimore while he'd go back and forth between cities. "Churchill kept saying, 'Come out.' I said, 'No way!'" Fader says. "I had about a hundred bucks in my pocket," Daven- port says. "I was bumming money off my brother to come here." He says his being gone all the time was hard on him and his wife. "She would say, 'What about some income?'" In 2009, 21c owners Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson offered Davenport, Maier and Smith, who had come on staff, office space in the basement of the building next to the hotel for one year rent-free. Davenport lived there for about six months. Owsley Brown III, a filmmaker and producer of the Festival of Faiths who splits his time between Louisville and San Francisco, picked up on Davenport's floating lifestyle and offered him space in the Hadley Pottery House on Story Avenue. "He gave me this gigantic mansion," Davenport says. Maier, Smith and Davenport spent a year applying for nonprofit status, which they needed to be able to get donations, as most donors don't like to give much money if they can't write it off on their taxes. ey named the school the Ken- tucky School of Art (KSA) to broaden its identity beyond Louisville. ey'd host potluck dinners, anything to spread the vision and raise money. Maier remem- bers lining the walls of that basement space with white paper and asking guests to draw their vision of an art school. e result was "some funky-looking stuff, some spaceship-looking stuff," Maier says, "but it was very much about open spaces and community." e team held community art classes and portfolio prep for high school kids, looking to attract potential students. Davenport brought in well-known artists, such as realist painter Bill Bailey and installation artist Judy Pfaff, for lectures and critiques. "I know famous people in New York. I know Chuck Close," Davenport says of the re- nowned artist. "I would call them up and say, 'You wanna come down to Lewis-ville and help me out with something?'" e crew made bumper stickers that read: "Love an artist" and attended the holiday festival Bardstown Road Aglow. Dav- enport says, "We were like a marching band walking around — 'We want an art school.'" It's often hard to tell whether Daven- port is joking or being serious. He seems to embellish some elements and downplay others. ("I'm a character," Davenport says.) "When you listen to Churchill talk about the dream, nobody else could do that," Maier says. "It was so much from the heart, about him and how he learned. Some of these young artists struggle in a big system. ey look at U of L and go, 'I can't do that.' Churchill could talk their language." According to several sources, there were naysayers in the art community. "Chur- chill would get upset," Maier says. "I used to tell him, 'Put your blinders on. Cover your ears. Focus forward. In three years they'll all want to be your best friend.'" Owsley Brown II, who died in 2011, helped Davenport hire a consultant to de- velop a feasibility study, which concluded that to become an accredited institution they would have to graduate several classes of students — and nobody's going to a school where they aren't getting credits but have to pay tuition. eir best option would be to partner with an existing university. In 2009, a KSA board member who knew the then-president at Bellarm- ine University started discussions with the school about partnering. By several accounts, a deal looked promising. Prepping for the first official year, Maier and others cold-called high schools, seeking permission to make presentations to classes, and they'd meet with potential faculty. Maier, whose son went to an art school in New York and has gone on to work as a video-game artist, worked to soothe parents' fears of the impracticality of an art degree — not to mention one coming from a school with no history or reputation. By spring 2010, Bellarmine had official- ly declined. "We were impressed with the concept, but ultimately concluded that School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Louisville had been a performing-arts town, but not until that point in her life did it seem to have any contemporary visual-art flair. Having gone to the art schools that modeled Davenport's vision, Smith saw "the dream," as many at Ky- CAD describe it. "Every person at those schools wanted to be an artist," she says. "No one was majoring in anything else but art. ere were a million majors, but all within the visual-art discipline. No Greek system. It's a different vibe. I was like, 'I would love to teach at a place like that.'" Davenport didn't have the business acumen to launch a school, so he reached out to his networks and found Kasey Maier. Maier worked in banking and had suffered through the financial crash of 2008. She had been jobless for nine months when a family friend, Tom Pike, who founded St. Francis High School, mentioned that Davenport had been calling him looking for a business operations person. Maier reached out blindly. After a couple meet- ings, Davenport told her he'd hire her to get the school off the ground — only he didn't have any money. It didn't take but a day or two for him to find a donor. Maier says that she and Davenport drove out to Harrods Creek one afternoon to get on a guy's houseboat. ey walked in and four or five men were sitting there with their bourbons. Maier grew up on a houseboat. Her dad was connected in the "river rat" world, so she mentioned that to a guy and they ended up knowing a lot of the same people. "And that was it. at was the selling point," she says. "It wasn't about my skillset or anything like that." e next day Davenport called her and said the guy agreed to pay her salary for six months. In those early days, Maier and Dav- enport would work out of Maier's house in St. Matthews. She'd have coffee ready and they'd say "Who do you know?" and build a database of names — artists, wealthy folks, movers and shakers. "e next thing you know, I got 200 names," Davenport says. ey'd meet with any- one willing to spare some time, Daven- port's pulpit often being a coffee shop. His childhood friends Owsley Brown II and Laura Lee Brown backed his idea, as did Owsley's son Owsley Brown III, and Davenport's cousin knew Humana "The thing about art," Davenport says, "I think of it like prayer, right? Anybody can pray."