SEATTLE, WA.- The Frye Art Museum announced that Lea Lovelace has been appointed Associate Director of Creative Aging Programs following a national search to fill the position. Joining the museum’s Learning & Engagement team, she begins her role on August 27, 2024.
Lovelace brings over two decades of work experience in museums, project management, community engagement, teaching, and program facilitation for aging populations to this new role. From 2018 to 2022, Lovelace served as Director of Folk Art Education for Vesterheim Museum and Folk Art School, authoring and securing the largest programming grant in institutional history. During the pandemic, she led the institution in launching an online programming platform, which increased audience engagement by ninefold in the first year and expanded participation from 29 to all 50 states and 18 countries. This ushered in a new era, supporting folk art education through approximately 200 onsite and online classes and events annually.
“It is an honor to join the Frye Art Museum team,” says Lovelace. “I’m deeply impressed and energized by the Frye’s commitment to community partnerships and its established history with Creative Aging programs. The museum’s collection and exhibitions have amazing stories to tell, as do the members of our aging public. I look forward to exploring this intersection in creative, accessible, and empowering ways—developing new community partnerships and designing even broader programming for our growing audience of lifelong learners.”
Director and Curator of Learning & Engagement Tamar Benzikry states, “I am thrilled to welcome Lea to the Frye as our first Associate Director of Creative Aging Programs. With Lea’s enthusiasm and extensive experience in partnership building, program development and evaluation, and fundraising, we are uniquely poised to not only enhance our existing Creative Aging programs for adults living with dementia and their care partners, but also to develop new initiatives that promote arts-based learning and wellness for older adults more broadly. I look forward to Lea’s insights and innovations as both a teaching artist and an arts administrator.”
As a teaching artist, Lovelace facilitated hands-on arts programs that support access and empowerment in senior living homes, community centers, libraries, and group homes. For seven years, she taught art education courses at Luther College and was named The National Art Education Association’s Outstanding Higher Education Art Educator in the State of Iowa in 2017. In 2008, Lovelace founded and served as co-director of ArtHaus, Decorah, Iowa’s first not-for-profit community art center. She developed and implemented visual arts classes, workshops and events for all ages, while cultivating partnerships with schools and the community. Lovelace holds a master's degree in art education with an emphasis in museum education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
“The Frye Art Museum is well-known as a pioneer in fostering wellbeing for older adults and people with dementia through their Creative Aging programs. We’ve enjoyed a long history of collaboration between the Frye and the UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center,” states Marigrace Becker, director of the Memory Hub. “The addition of this dynamic new team member will grow our partnership potential in exciting ways.”
Since 2010, the Frye Art Museum has been at the forefront of Creative Aging programming in museums, providing opportunities to deepen life experiences, foster friendships, and build community through art. Past programs have included small-group experiences in the galleries and art studio, one-on-one art making in care communities, and conferences and workshops on creativity, dementia, and healthy aging that bring together social services and health-care professionals. Lovelace will collaborate with Samantha Sanders, Creative Aging Coordinator, to support legacy programs and explore new initiatives.
