The theme friends chose for Robin Rankin's recent 40th-birthday bash was "The Six Degrees of Robin Rankin."

Rankin, the newly named executive director of the Kimball Art Center, laughs as she recalls the party. People from distant, near and disparate parts of her life all came together for the first time, connected through their tie to one person.

Rankin thinks about her new job -- she took over the post at the troubled Park City arts group three weeks ago -- in a similar way. She hopes to connect the resort town's arts community in what she describes as a social, generative and celebratory way.

Rankin, a native Canadian and eight-year Park City transplant, takes over the Kimball after a bumpy year, characterized by the sudden departure of the previous director, Pam Crowe-Weisberg, and a handful of staff members. A board member, Bruce Larabee, was named interim director, and then in mid-July, permanent director.

The staff turnover came after a rift between the Kimball and the local arts community about money and leadership.

In a Wednesday phone interview, Rankin talked about a just-finished morning meeting with the Park City/Summit County Arts Council, which included gallery owners Julie Nester and Connie Katz. "How can we start again?" was a topic of discussion.

One common goal, Rankin said, is to make Park City a destination point for the arts and not just skiing. Helping Park City be considered an arts destination has been a long-held wish, but the challenge has been trying to find the right individuals to lead the effort, particularly at the Kimball. "What they need is someone who can get in there and work hard 24/7," said Katz, owner of the Coda Gallery and a former Kimball board member.

The former director, Weisberg, "was a fun chick that had lived in New York," Katz said, and the Kimball had "had some good shows." But the problem began when the Kimball, with the members' consent, took over gallery stroll and charged local galleries a membership fee that, in the end, didn't deliver "bang for the buck," in Katz's estimation. "We were paying them, and they were running ads," Katz said, but she and other business owners thought the advertising messages were too focused on getting patrons into the Kimball.

So earlier this year, Park City gallery owners banded together, asked for the return of their combined $18,000 in annual dues and formed a new local group, the Park City Gallery Association. They launched a new stroll, which included the Kimball but was not centered there.

In the meantime, Larabee, the former board president and an artist himself, tried to hold the Kimball together. Agency officials aren't saying exactly what happened next.

In a carefully worded news release dated Oct. 23, Rankin was named the Kimball's new executive director, followed by this statement:

"Bruce Larabee, who has served as KAC's current executive director, will transition his role to be able to lead a new KAC Advisory Committee focused on expanding community involvement and leadership engagement." Katz speculates that Larabee might have felt torn between his responsibilities to his own business, his art and the art center.

All of that history makes Rankin's statements about her goals to bring the Kimball and other arts groups together sound more pressing. Laurie Eastwood, chairwoman of the Kimball's board, praises Rankin's "passion for building relationships, her experience in promoting the arts and her track record for growing businesses," which added up to make her the right pick for the job.

Perhaps her hiring has something to do with another kind of alignment, too. Just as Rankin turned 40, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the Kimball's Park City Art Festival.

The leadership transition at the Kimball Arts Center comes at a time when the whole country is talking about an economic downturn. But consider the real wealth in the Park City community, which Rankin describes as the richness of artistic endeavor. Rankin considers her new position more about "friend-raising" than anything else.