ARCHIVES

ARCHIVES

Wildling appoints new executive director

Staff Report

The Wildling Art Museum has hired a new executive director, who arrives in the Valley after leading the Catalina Island Museum for the past 10 years.

Stacey Otte will be moving to the Santa Ynez Valley from Catalina Island, where she has been the executive director of the Catalina Island Museum since 1999.

Otte’s selection is the result of a nationwide search conducted by a committee of trustees of the Wildling Art Museum and other local museum professionals.

Patti Jacquemain, president of the museum’s board and a member of the search committee, says that she “is delighted and pleased, as is the entire board of the Wildling, that Stacey Otte has been chosen and accepted our offer to be our new executive director.

Otte takes over from retiring director Penny Knowles, who held the job for nine years. She will continue to be involved with the museum on a contract basis.

“I am confident that Stacey will continue Penny’s achievements of making the Wildling a cultural centerpiece of the Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Barbara County and a fun place to visit,” Jacquemain added.

Otte will assume her new role the first week in February.

“I’m very excited to be joining the team at the Wildling Art Museum,” Otte said. “I’m inspired by its mission that combines art and preservation of America’s wilderness and have quite fallen in love with the Santa Ynez Valley. I’m very much looking forward to joining the community."

Prior to taking the helm of the Catalina museum, Otte was the collections manager for eight years.

Wildling officials say the Catalina Island Museum has thrived under Otte’s leadership and is about to break ground on a new museum building in Avalon.

While the Catalina Island Museum is primarily a history museum, it also organizes art exhibitions including the annual Catalina Pottery and Tile Extravaganza and the annual Plein Air Art exhibition sponsored by the Society for the Advancement of Plein Air Painting (SAPAP).

Otte’s education includes a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology from Arizona State University and an Master of Arts in museum studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Cooperstown, N.Y.

She also has worked as an assistant or intern at the Autry National Center, Los Angeles; the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyo., the Leicestershire Museums in Leicester, England; the Arizona Museum of Science and Technology in Phoenix, the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.; and the Tempe Historical Museum in Tempe, Ariz.

She also received advanced training in museum management from the Getty Leadership Institute and has served in a volunteer capacity on committees of the American Association of State and Local History and the California Association of Museums.

The museum, at 2928 San Marcos Ave. in Los Olivos, is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays.

For more information call 688-1082 or visit www.wildlingmuseum.org.

December 1, 2009