Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper
LAST EXHIBIT FOR THIS DIRECTOR – Amy Green is retiring after 13 years as director of the Pacific Northwest Quilt and Fiber Arts Museum. That is a shoebill she is standing behind, an African bird that is in "Avian Rhapsody," by the artist Serap Whitmer. It is open through July 28. Say goodbye to Amy at an open house Sunday at the museum.
Amy Green has for the past decade been the very uncommon thread binding together diverse exhibits and educational programs at the Pacific Northwest Quilt and Fiber Arts Museum at historic Gaches Mansion.
Her focus has been uncommon in that Green brought with her to La Conner in 2013 an extensive background in a wide range of artistic impression and managerial experience, including six years as director of operations at the famed Georgia O'Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, N.M.
Now Green is returning to her roots.
She is retiring at the end of the month, telling quilt museum board members that she'll "finally get some time to do my art."
Green officially steps down July 25 and plans to move to Massachusetts to be near her son. Before then, the public will get to send her off in fine style befitting someone who has long been instrumental in shaping the social and cultural fabric of La Conner.
Green will be feted from 3-5 p.m. Sunday, July 14, during a no-gift open house at the museum.
"Everyone is welcome to attend," board members announced in a news release. "This is our opportunity to thank her for her years of service and acknowledge the many things the museum has accomplished under her leadership."
Among the highlights of Green's tenure here was stewarding the museum through its silver anniversary celebration in 2022. The anniversary exhibitions underscored the museum's role in promoting and displaying the works of top quilters and fiber artists from near and far, including Japan.
Green has spent much of her career working in museums and non-profit organizations that support the arts. In La Conner, she has melded a passion for textile arts – operating a fiber arts center was an early ambition – with her devotion to the museum field.
Her career journey has included stops in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Green worked eight years at a multi-disciplinary arts center before running a foundation in Sedona, Ariz., which enjoys a global reputation as a mecca for artists, healers and spiritual guides.
She moved to the Pacific Northwest to briefly work at a non-profit, then landed in La Conner after answering a newspaper ad seeking an executive director for the quilt and fiber arts museum established in town in 1997 by the late Rita Hupy.
It has been Green's home base ever since.
"This is my dream job," Green told the Weekly News in an August 2022 interview. "I'd always wanted to manage a fiber arts museum and I love historic buildings."
Gaches Mansion, home of the museum and considered a jewel of Victorian architecture certainly checks her second box. It was refurbished consistent with the building's original design following a major 1973 fire.
Green has often remarked on how visitors are surprised at the quantity and variety of displays found at a fiber arts museum in a Town of La Conner's size.
Light refreshments will be served at Green's reception. The board suggests in lieu of gifts that those attending consider contributing to the fund being collected to help Green and her loyal pug, Pippin, with their move to the East Coast.
"We're one of the few museums in the United States that has a pug for a mascot," Green proudly told the Weekly News. "There are a couple museums that have cats. But we have a pug. He's mine, he takes care of me in the office and he helps keep our spirits high."
Reader Comments(0)