FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 12, 2014
AMOCA Media Contact
Paul Roach
Director of Advancement and Communications
Tel 909-865-3146
communications@amoca.org
AMERICAN MUSEUM OF CERAMIC ART (AMOCA)
NAMES BETH ANN GERSTEIN AS NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
(Pomona, Calif.) – Following a national search, the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) has announced the appointment of Beth Ann Gerstein as its new Executive Director. In making the announcement, Don Pattison, chair of the AMOCA Board of Directors and the search committee said, “Beth Ann Gerstein is an accomplished arts leader, curator, writer, and teacher. She will bring strategic and artistic leadership to AMOCA, and we are delighted she will be the Museum’s second executive director since the opening in 2004.” Gerstein succeeds founding executive director Christy Johnson who retired in 2013.
Founded in 2001 and opened in September 2004, AMOCA is the largest ceramics museum on the west coast and one of only a few museums in the United States devoted exclusively to ceramic art and historic innovations in ceramic technology. Its permanent collection includes work by Ken Price, Peter Voulkos, Paul Soldner, Beatrice Wood and Patty Warashina and major collections of American, German, Mexican, and English ceramics. The museum, with more than 50,000 square feet, is located in a vintage bank building and includes one of the largest ceramics studios in Southern California.
“I am honored to be selected by the museum Board and the search committee to be the new Executive Director. I am very excited to be at a museum with an exclusive focus on ceramics, an ancient material that continues to engage and challenge artists, designers, architects, and the public. I look forward to working with the Board of Directors and staff as well as AMOCA’s founder, David Armstrong, whose vision, support, and determination have helped to make the museum what it is today,” said Gerstein.
Beth Ann Gerstein has served as the Executive Director of The Society of Arts and Crafts (SAC) in Boston, Massachusetts, for the past 20 years. Established in 1897, SAC is the oldest non-profit craft organization in the country. Gerstein’s tenure at SAC has been marked by dynamic growth in programming and expansion of endowment and other program funds. Before joining SAC, she served as the Executive Director of the Brookline Arts Center and the Director of the Bromfield Gallery in Massachusetts.
Gerstein received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Edinboro University in Pennsylvania and a Master of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. She has long been a strong and dedicated advocate for the arts, working with communities to promote artists and their work. She currently serves on the Board of Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Maine and on the Collections Committee of the Fuller Craft Museum in Massachusetts. She recently completed six years on the Glass Art Society Board and three years on the Society of North American Goldsmiths’ Lifetime Achievement Award Committee. She has served as a grant panelist, a juror, a lecturer and a teacher throughout the United States.
“In order to effectively fulfill AMOCA’s mission, there will be a strong commitment to producing high quality exhibitions, a dedication to arts education, and to being effective stewards of the museum’s permanent collection,” Gerstein says.
“Her drive and passion will serve AMOCA well, not to mention the wider arts scene in Southern California,” says Pattison. Gerstein’s first day at AMOCA will be August 4, just as the Museum begins to celebrate its 10th anniversary.
About AMOCA: The American Museum of Ceramic Art champions the art, history, creation, and technology of ceramics through exhibitions, collections, outreach and studio programming.
At AMOCA: The current exhibition, Large as Life, features the work of Betty Davenport Ford, Elaine Katzer, and Lisa Reinertson and runs through August 31.
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American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA)
399 North Garey Ave
Pomona, CA 91767
(909) 865-3146
www.amoca.org