Jade Davis (left), 8, Donna Service and Kelvis Farris,13, pick lettuce Nov. 13, 2000, from the garden at the Renzi Center on Egan Street. Service, 41, died Sunday on unknown causes while bicycling with her husband, Leonard. (File/The Times)
Services
Memorial services for Donna Service will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday at Redeemer Lutheran Church.
Memorial services for Donna Service will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday at Redeemer Lutheran Church.
dhaag@gannett.com
Always positive and always driven, Donna Service had great dreams for the Shreveport art community.
After her unexpected death Sunday, members of the community vowed to continue her work.
"She not only is a brilliant artist in her own right, but she was constantly pushing herself, pushing the art field," said Pam Atchison, executive director of Shreveport Regional Arts Council. "Not only will she be sadly missed, but others will have to step forward and be as bold."
Service, 41, died of unknown causes while bicycling with her husband, Leonard.
"She was beautiful, and she was all that was good," Leonard said, his voice crumbling. "She never had a bad thing to say about anyone. I loved her so much."
She was best known in Shreveport as founding director of the Renzi Education and Art Center, which she helped open in 1998. The center, run under the umbrella of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows congregation, provided academic and artistic opportunities for children of all income levels.
When the sisters were first organizing the program, Service was a gift "out of nowhere," Sister Sharon Rambin said. Service designed the program and pulled together the funding to make the center work.
"The children there worshiped Donna," Rambin said. "She saw joy in everything and everyone. She brought out the gifts that these children had."
Two years ago, Service left the center to take a full-time teaching position at Bossier Parish Community College. But her husband said she would consider the Renzi Center as one of her greatest accomplishments.
In addition to her teaching, Service was well known as an artist in her own right. She earned her bachelor's degree at LSU and then a master of fine arts degree at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
Exhibiting mostly in Louisiana, she also showed her work in Georgia, Illinois and Washington, D.C.
Recently she worked in textiles with several exhibits centering on women's issues. As well, she had done work with the Peter Pan Centennial helping build the On the Edge of Town wooden sculpture inside the entrance of artspace and creating the sock sculpture upstairs.
Bruce Allen, Service's colleague in a local arts group and chairman of the Department of Art and Visual Culture at Centenary College, called her "uncompromising" in her attitude toward her work.
"She had to do the work that was important to her without trying to adjust for public taste," he said.
At the same time, he said, she taught him about balancing the community's needs and attitudes with the work.
Within the arts community she was seen as a tireless worker and advocate. Atchison, who has a theater background, often looked to Service for advice in visual arts. Within SRAC, Service helped develop fellowship programs, the public art symposium and offered advice on the mission of artspace.
"I hope we will all remember her message about what is professionalism," in the arts, Atchison said. "We all looked to Donna as a barometer for quality."
All of Service's work was done with full support of and sometimes with her husband, Atchison said. She and Leonard met while they were in high school and started immediately dating. They were married 22 years and have a son, Mac -- her other greatest accomplishment, Leonard said -- who will be 6 on Wednesday.