San Francisco, CA March 19, 2010 -- Headlands Center for the Arts (Marin County, CA) is pleased to announce the appointment of Sharon Maidenberg as Executive Director.
As the fourth Director in the organization's 28-year history, Maidenberg first came to Headlands as a volunteer, joined the staff as Associate Director in March 2007 and has served as Acting Director since September 2008. She has ten years of non-profit arts management experience in fundraising and development, communications, strategic planning and program development. Her background and commitment is to artist-centered organizations, and she has enjoyed successful terms with notable Bay Area arts organizations including New Langton Arts, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Southern Exposure.
"The board is thrilled with Sharon's appointment as Executive Director. Her leadership over the past year in guiding our programs and planning for the future has been exemplary. Sharon has a deep passion for and commitment to Headlands and we look forward to working with her in her new role," says Mark Jensen, Chair of Headlands Center for the Arts’ Board of Trustees.
During Sharon’s tenure to date, Headlands has increased audience outreach and visibility, grown contributed and earned income, developed new programmatic initiatives, strengthened infrastructure and organizational capacity, enhanced communication with the National Park Service and Marin Headlands Park Partners and perhaps most significantly, engaged in a long-range strategic planning process that will serve as the roadmap for the organization for the coming three years.
Coming Up this Spring at Headlands
Under Maidenberg’s leadership, 2010 marks another ambitious year of programs at Headlands, with more than forty international Artists in Residence, among them Allison Smith (CA), Jon Raskin (CA), Seher Shah (NY), Steve Lambert (NY), Mariele Neudecker (UK), Kalup Linzy (NY), Kuehne and Klein (Switzerland), Richard Maloy (New Zealand), Stina Wirflet (Sweden), Jefferson Pinder (MD) and many others.
In addition to resident artists, Headlands serves as a leader in creative dialogue and hosts thousands of visitors each year through its public programs. Upcoming programs during Spring 2010 include:
- A conversation with Tucker Nichols on March 21
- A public discussion about alternative economic models that artists are working within on April 8
- Headlands’ Open House on April 18
- The world premiere of Please Love Me, a new multimedia dance project by Alex Ketley, Les Stuck and the dancers of the Foundry on May 5 & 6
- The 2009/2010 Graduate Fellows Exhibition which runs May 9 – June 6, with a public reception on May 16
About Headlands Center for the Arts
Headlands Center for the Arts provides an unparalleled environment for the creative process and the development of new work and ideas. Known for the depth and range of support it offers artists at all stages of their careers, Headlands programs have provided residencies, studio space, public exposure, and awards for more than 1,000 regional, national and international artists of diverse backgrounds and disciplines, from emerging talents to the well-known and highly influential. Headlands’ record as an innovative and influential cultural resource is most clearly manifest through its international reputation, the achievements of alumni and its partnerships and collaborations with educational, producing and presenting organizations throughout the Bay Area and far beyond.
Headlands was incorporated in 1982 by a founding Board of Directors comprised primarily of local artists. Since 1987 Headlands has sponsored dynamic programs for artists and the public that include residencies, lectures and performances, Open Houses, community-based projects, publications and commissions. In 1994, Headlands Center for the Arts secured a long-term Cooperative Agreement for use of buildings in the Marin Headlands within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, just minutes north of San Francisco. Situated in a campus of artist-renovated military buildings that include studios, workshops, living quarters, lecture spaces, seminar rooms, dining facilities, and administrative offices, Headlands Center for the Arts hosts an internationally recognized Artist in Residence Program, interdisciplinary public programs, and subsidized studio rentals for Bay Area artists of all disciplines.
For details visit www.headlands.org.
