Artspace has appointed Samantha Wood, a former Greenfield Recorder news editor, as its new executive director.
Wood, who replaces Cecelia Berger, will have overall strategic and operational responsibility for staff, programs, expansion, and execution of the mission of the arts organization, originally known as the Arts Council of Franklin County.
Board President Stephen Hussey said Artspace was excited to find someone with Wood’s background and enthusiasm as it continues offering a variety of visual arts and music programs for children and adults, including private lessons and a Strings for Kids program that serves more than 100 youths.
“To find someone who’s enthusiastic to pick that up is thrilling for us,” Hussey said. “We need someone with the energy and the vision, and we feel Sam’s brought both of those. We know what we do we’re doing well: the Strings for Kids program, the programs we offer in art and music for kids and adults … We just know that there’s more that we can do, and we’re really looking for ways to expand that. We were really thrilled that that’s exactly what Samantha’s vision is: let’s look at what’s going well and find the funding to expand that.”
He said he and other board members knew “this was a real good fit, right from the outset. There was just no question.”
Wood, a Franklin County resident for about 20 years who has worked as a journalist as well as a poet and installation artist, said, “I know how important the arts are in the life of Franklin County and Western Massachusetts. Artspace has been a key point of entry and continued participation in the arts economy for many years. Artists need many homes in a community, and a thriving community needs many artists. It is a great time to look ahead to a growing role for the organization as it contributes to an ever stronger and more dynamic creative landscape here.”
Wood will greet the public along with artists Sarah Adam and Nancy Baker on Friday, at an opening reception for the latest gallery exhibit of Baker’s graceful, warm and even humorous paintings of birds and Adam’s colorful and emotionally rich, landscapes. The reception will be from 5:15 to 7:15 p.m. at Artspace, 15 Mill St. Everyone is welcome, and Wood said that a planned ensemble performance by Artspace students represents the kind of interdisciplinary opportunities the organization hopes to offer so it can play a more prominent role in the community.
The 44-year-old organization, with a mission of encouraging and nurturing the appreciation of and participation in the arts by offering programs and instruction, and by advocating the importance of the arts in the community, has a gallery that hosts multiple shows throughout the year. Its free Strings For Kids program, 10 years running, provides violin and cello lessons for free to children in Greenfield public schools.
Looking ahead, Wood says Artspace will create more opportunities for music students to perform in multiple venues, expand class offerings, aim to reach more people throughout the community who may not yet have access to the arts, and collaborate with municipal and other community institutions to realize the exciting potential in Greenfield’s downtown cultural district.”
Wood worked for The Recorder for 16 years and has spent two years as managing editor for news at The Berkshire Eagle, in Berkshire County, where she was also heard on WAMC’s Friday Morning Edition, and served as senior publicist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2018 Tanglewood season.
Wood is also a poet and installation artist. Her recent work includes poetry for performance in Lori Holmes Clark’s Fine House production at the Chefs Dinner by the River at Good Stock Farm in Hatfield. Wood’s “Hauling Toward Home,” an audio collage, launched in April 2018 at Eggtooth Production’s Full Disclosure Festival in Turners Falls.
She is a member of Exploded View, a Franklin County-based women artists’ collaborative, and holds a bachelor’s degree in English-teaching from the University of New Hampshire, and a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Wood said that her own art work, which is collaborative and across art forms, helps her see how different kinds of artists work as well as their needs, and that work also helps her build community connections to facilitate the needs of other artists to create and showcase their work.
www.artspacegreenfield.com