New quilt and fiber arts museum director weaves southeastern ties into work here

The new director of Pacific Northwest Quilt Museum and Fiber Arts Museum has an academic and professional history rooted in the southeast but is fast becoming a key part of the fabric of La Conner.

It helps that she has a familiar sounding name.

Carla Funk, for nearly a decade the director of university museums at Florida Institute of Technology and then a curator in North Carolina, is succeeding Amy Green, who retired in July.

Funk is not knowingly related to Skagit County's pioneer Funk family – though she is searching for possible connections on a genealogical website. She terms "serendipitous" her arrival in La Conner and new position at historic Gaches Mansion on Second Street.

"I heard about the opening here from a friend, a colleague," relates Funk. "I wasn't really looking for a job. It was purely by happenstance. Another thing that makes it so serendipitous is that there aren't that many jobs and opportunities in this field."

Fate couldn't have been more kind.

"I love the seafood and water here," she told the Weekly News on Thursday. "I've always lived near the ocean other than the three years I spent in the mountains (of western North Carolina). But you have everything here. There's even a butterfly garden across the street. The landscape is absolutely beautiful."

Ditto the professional landscape.

Funk, as had Green, noted that it's rare for a town the size of La Conner to have a quilt and fiber arts museum. Especially one with a permanent collection featuring top quality historic quilts plus a well-established collaboration with acclaimed Japanese quilters.

"I want to honor that," said Funk, who also unveiled goals to expand the museum's popular Quilt Festival and increase community engagement around thematic events and exhibits.

"Another goal," she said, "is to have every local person come through our doors. That's very important to me. I want to make it a gathering space for locals. Museums should be places that are welcoming. A main purpose is to bring in stimulating exhibits of quilts and fiber arts. And you can do it in different ways."

Funk knows that from first-hand experience. She is an avid museum visitor. Having been here less than a month, she has already twice taken in the Museum of Northwest Art.

Like landing her position here, Funk embarked on her careers in museum administration and as a college-level instructor in art history mostly by chance.

"I went to college intending to be a writer, a journalist," she recounted. "I ended up taking an art history class as an elective and thought it was great. I discovered that I was a visual learner."

As a student, she gravitated toward medieval art. Funk later embraced fiber arts.

"I came to realize how topical textiles can be," Funk said. "They've been so important in history. They took so much time to create and they often served as expressions of wealth, taste and class because silk, linen and wool were so valuable."

After her bachelor's degree in art history from New College of Florida, she completed graduate studies in the master's program at Florida State.

From there, it was on to Atlanta and doctoral work at Emory University.

In 2009, she became founding director of the Center for Textile Arts at Florida Tech. From 2011-2020 she was executive director and chief curator of the university's museums.

"It was wonderful work," Funk said, noting that is when her interest in fiber arts expanded.

"It became a real passion," she said.

Unfortunately, the campus textile arts center closed permanently due to "unprecedented economic uncertainty" linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Funk found new homes for the museum's collections before moving on to the Asheville, N.C. area, where she worked as a curator and gave gallery talks on exhibitions, including a show that featured examples of contemporary American craft such as woodworking, metalsmithing, pottery and, of course, fiber.

Funk started here in mid-July, transitioning with help from Green, whose last day before departing for New England was July 25. That week-and-a-half oriented Funk for a varied workload and allowed her to become better acquainted with the museum's board.

"That was very helpful," she said. "It was good. In a smaller museum, people wear a lot of different hats.

"I was very impressed with the board," said Funk. "They're very focused on building an audience."

The current display is intricate and colorful sculptural and wearable art fashioned by 22-year-old Oklahoma fiber artist Kendall Ross, a recent graduate of Pepperdine University in California.

"She's having a moment," Funk said of Ross. "She has a huge following on social media."

Her popularity reflects that of fiber arts in general, said Funk.

"Fiber has become a big 21st century medium," she said. "Looking at visual arts can speak so much."

For Funk, the feedback she is receiving has spoken well of her initial efforts at the museum.

"Everyone has been so nice," she affirmed. "There's a real sense of camaraderie I've felt here."