Pam Blevins Hinkle was plugged into matters of spirit and place long before her business card said so. As the latest director of the Indianapolis-based Spirit & Place Festival, the spontaneous, spiky-haired arts administrator and choral conductor !is about to help launch her second extravaganza drawing religious, arts and civic groups into public conversations. Based in a drab Northwestside office space brightened by a string of colored flags and original art by her mother, the Franklin native finds her latest job a natural fit. After all, she spent more than 20 years working for not-for-profit groups, and has immersed herself in spirituality, both on the job and in her personal life.

You're about to help launch the 12th annual Spirit & Place Festival. How has the festival evolved?

The festival has grown dramatically, from one public conversation and about eight events to a peak of about 115 events inside a 17-day festival in 2004. What's interesting about the history, from what I can tell, is the constant flow of new groups. There have been some repeats -- the Indianapolis Art Center and Christian Theological Seminary, among them -- but each year, 30 to 40 percent of the organizations in the Spirit & Place Festival are new. You can have 1,000 people at some revered venues, but also 20 people in a church basement.

The theme of the 2007 festival is "Living Generously." Would you describe the programs in a nutshell?

Stories of generosity are being told here through teens, different countries, veterans ... That's where the magic is -- hearing stories from people who appear to be different from us, but are not so different after all.

Who taught you about the concept of living generously?

Probably the best examples would be my mother, Pat Blevins, who lives in Bloomington, and my grandmother, Hazel Blevins, my father's mother. Hazel was a traditional housewife. She really lived a life of service. She volunteered for all sorts of charitable organizations. I remember being carted to church and a children's home where she volunteered for many years. She did it so joyously, and clearly out of a sense of duty. My mother was a single mom raising two kids by herself, but she also taught Sunday school at our church to adults who were (mentally challenged).

The festival embraces all kinds of events, but music is clearly a key component (from a flute festival to programs with singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer, a big band and the Indianapolis Women's Chorus). What role does music play in your life?

My mother plays piano by ear, and my dad (Win Blevins) was a trained pianist. I have been a musician all my life. I studied flute at Butler University with Francis Fitzgerald (who played in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and died in 2001). I also play the djembe, an African drum. I have been a music director at two Unitarian Universalist churches. I have been the director of the Women's Chorus for 11 years now.

Some community choirs change conductors more often. Why do you keep working with the Women's Chorus?

We continue to grow. The chorus has changed me radically, and I have changed as a conductor radically in those years. I don't try to control, as I used to do. I view myself much more as a facilitator. A lot of us conductors, you know, our egos are kind of big, and I had to learn to get out of the way.

In 2003, you won a Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis. Wasn't there a spiritual aspect to the way you used that grant?

Oh, definitely. I took a two-week course in Gregorian chant at St. Meinrad Archabbey, I studied music of the Maoris, an indigenous people of New Zealand, and I attended a pagan festival. What prompted me to do this was that, with the Women's Chorus, I had started opening the rehearsals and closing with a chant. I saw a very distinct shift in the ensemble after we did that. Opening with a chant gave them a way to release the tensions of the day, become more present, and listen better musically. I was fascinated by that.

Didn't you run your own grant-writing business?

Yes -- The Hinkle Group, a consulting firm that helps nonprofit groups with grant writing. It was my business for eight years.

Prior to that, you spent several years working for nonprofit groups in Pennsylvania. What did you do there?

I was in Pittsburgh for nine years, from 1987 to 1995. I worked for the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, mostly in development. Before that, I worked for the Sweetwater Art Center in Sewickley, Pa., but I lived in Pittsburgh. I went to (Sweetwater) fresh from graduate school. I did fundraising, program development and marketing. I had a staff of four or five. It was like the Indianapolis Art Center, in that it focused on teaching and exhibitions.

Are you a visual artist?

Heavens, no! My mother is an extremely gifted visual artist. I am not.

Why did you come back to Indiana?

When I was young, I pretty much left Indiana with the intention of never returning. But I had a baby in 1991, and motherhood changed my life in every way. My husband, Eric, is also from Johnson County, just from a different place than I am.

Why was leading Spirit & Place a logical next career move for you?

I saw the job description online, and it was the first time I had seen a job description for my life. Interdisciplinary collaboration with an emphasis on place, an interest in spirituality and an engagement of a diverse cultural community? That's me. It combines my vocation and my avocation, all in one job.

You've done a lot of serious things in your life, but you also strike me as a humorous person. How has humor played out in your life?

Oh, humor is central. My other grandmother, my maternal grandmother, laughed at everything and her life was hard, and yet she was always cackling about things that happened to her, and I grew up with that. Whatever life's challenges were, we laughed at them and recounted them to others with great mirth. A co-worker of mine once told me I was the most unlucky person she'd ever known, because I was always telling these ridiculous stories about flat tires. I thought they were riotously funny. They didn't seem unlucky to me at all.