Position: Director of Arts & Environmental Education
Reports to: Executive Director, Deputy Director
Employment Type: Full-time, Exempt
ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Walter Anderson Museum of Art (WAMA) is a nationally-accredited, 501(c)(3) nonprofit museum in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, just blocks away from the waters of the Mississippi Sound. WAMA is dedicated to the preservation and celebration of artist-philosopher Walter Inglis Anderson (1903-1965) and kindred artists. Anderson ’s paintings, drawings, murals, block prints, sculptures, and writings of coastal plants, animals, and landscapes have placed him among the most compelling and singular artists of the 20th century.
Today, WAMA is deploying its mission of “empowering lifelong curiosity and connection to the natural world” through programs and partnerships that serve not only its immediate locality, but statewide and regional communities. Its activities occur both within and beyond Museum walls, including educational initiatives that use the nearby barrier islands as dynamic “wilderness classrooms”. Programs and exhibitions mine the foundation significance of the Southern land and sea to address themes and applications that include environmental science, humanities study, mental health, creative economy, and community development.
Artist Walter Anderson believed that a relationship to nature ’s beauty, improvisation, and regeneration could unlock humanity ’s capacity to embrace its own. “Anderson is the artist of the Gulf of Mexico,” writes Jack E. Davis in his Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental history, 'The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea.' Anderson ’s project was experiential; he encountered and depicted its hurricanes, its animal and plant life, its eroding sands, and its unadulterated brilliance. “ ... His lines are vivid, limber, and alive,” continues Davis. “They are the lines of the Gulf of Mexico and its wildlife. They transpired from his search for wholeness in nature, a ‘significant form ’ that he sought to discover not merely from the visual form but from the biological, by touching, feeling, listening, and even tasting.”
ABOUT THE POSITION:
The Director of Arts & Environmental Education is responsible for directing and advancing programs, exhibitions, and interactive experiences that interface with coastal ecosystems and current scientific research and study in the Gulf South. The position will develop and manage new and existing programs grounded in data and informal STEM methodologies, working closely with curatorial and leadership teams. The position will work to leverage Museum collections and interpretation to create innovative, sustainable programs that advance the strategic plan now and into the future, including identification and pursuit of funding streams beyond traditional arts and culture that position the institution as a leader at the intersections of multi-disciplinary art and science education.
