The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, a noncollecting contemporary art museum focused on the art of our time, recently elected five new members to three-year terms on its 19-member board of trustees.
The new trustees bring to the museum “invaluable personal experience and expertise in contemporary art and museums, community engagement, nonprofit administration and financial management,” Director Danny Lichtenfeld said.
New members are:
- Enrique Chavez, brand stylist at The Orvis Company. At Orvis, Chavez is responsible for apparel styling, art direction, production design and coordination of multiple photo shoots per year for Orvis catalogs, mailings, retail stores and the website. Before joining Orvis, he lived in New York City for 14 years, where he worked as a photo stylist and interior designer.
- Katherine Gass Stowe, New York metropolitan area curator at Bank of America. Gass Stowe is a professional curator and art adviser who has successfully organized private and public collections, installations, exhibitions and related programming for clients in the US and abroad for over 30 years. She has held her curator position at Bank of America since 2002.
- Laura Howat, a longtime supporter of the arts and nonprofits in Brattleboro and New York City. Howat, daughter of the late John K Howat, longtime chairman of the Department of American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, previously served as a trustee at BMAC from 2009-15 and again from 2016-22. She also sits on the board of the New York City nonprofit Urban Glass.
- Stephanie Huestis, vice president and commercial banking officer at Brattleboro Savings & Loan. Since 2021, Huestis has been a member of BMAC's finance committee. She is a board member of the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance and Groundworks Collaborative, former board chair of the United Way of Windham County, and past president of the Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce.
- Petria "Petey" Mitchell, co-owner of the Brattleboro gallery Mitchell Giddings Fine Arts. Mitchell, an artist, co-owns Mitchell Giddings with her husband, Jim Giddings. She has served several prior terms on the BMAC Board of Trustees. She is actively involved with many Brattleboro organizations, including River Gallery School of Art, Brattleboro West Arts and Brattleboro Area Hospice, among others.
In addition to appointing new trustees, the board also elected the following officers to one-year terms: Suzie Walker (pictured), president; Daniel Goldstein, vice president; Christophe Gagné, treasurer; and Ed McCatty, secretary.