VAA Welcomes New Executive Director

Vashon Allied Arts welcomes new Executive Director Molly W. Reed.  After several rigorous interviews with VAA Board of Trustees, staff and community members, Reed was selected from a large group of qualified candidates.  Reed began her new position in January, and on her second day of commuting to the Blue Heron Art Center from Seattle she spoke about the events that led her to Vashon Allied Arts.

 

 

One thing the staff was impressed with was how you compared your world travels with your desire to work in the arts.  Can you speak about that again?

When I got home from this trip around the world with my husband and two teenage daughters in 2003, it was a very difficult time of transition for me.  We had been to India and seen poverty that no one can comprehend unless you’ve actually seen it firsthand.

So after having this amazing experience, I had a hard time figuring out what to do with it.  How could I save the world?  But then as I went through this period of self examination, I remembered all the different art we saw in all of these different cultures.

I thought about the fact that you can be in one of these great museums in the world—the Egyptian Museum, the Louvre, the Prado—and you can stand in front of a work of art with travelers from around the world who have come to see this same art.  I thought about that as a unifying force.

And so it brought me to this place that I am not sure I have been before, which was this sensibility, this spirit of human beings who honor artists, who believe in art, who celebrate art, and see how it celebrates the best of what makes us human and our desire to explore new frontiers.

I thought that is so much a strength of the human race, and if all people could feel that, see that, experience that, that I really believe it can build more understanding between one person to another and one culture to another.  And maybe if we all honored art in the same way in the whole world, that we would also be the same people, the same kind of societies, that do not tolerate poverty and hunger and violence and all of the things that are the worst of humanity.

So when this job became available it was at the right time for where I was, intellectually and emotionally.  I was ready to get back into the work world and it was just perfect.

What impressed you about Vashon?

I truly think that the word ‘unique’ is overused, but to the best of my knowledge there is not a community like this in the whole country.  You have this relatively small geographic area and it is populated by all these wonderful artists and all these art forms and just about all the rest of the people, if they are not working artists, they love the arts and are supportive of the arts.  It is compatible with how my husband and I think about things. So we are excited to be settling on Vashon with the rest of the pioneers.

What is your favorite art medium? Have you practiced or studied any art forms?

I was a frustrated actress in my teens and early twenties. And I used to say if I could ever sing on stage then I would be done.  And I finally got to do that when I was 21 and I had the part of Lady Larkin in Once Upon a Mattress.  It was utter terror for me to sing on stage, but I did it and I was finished.  I also did some costuming as a designer.  In terms of performing arts, the theater is my first love.  But I love the visual arts, as well, and I have always bought art.

Back to the theater, because that leads into one of your major professional achievements.  You were cofounder of the Seattle Children’s Theatre, right?

Right.  Back in 1975 there was this dynamic that allowed the first version of the Seattle Children’s Theatre to come about.  I was working in the cultural arts division of the Seattle Parks Department and the Poncho Theatre was part of that.  Because I put on one of the first Women in the Arts festivals in the area, I was promoted to manager of the theatre.  At the same time there was this fabulous children’s theater master program at UW with all these graduate students who wanted to do what they were trained to do.  Our first play was Little Red Riding Hood.  People were knocking down the door.  Families wanted this opportunity for their children.  We had the facility, the desire and the need.  We had the dream to create the best new theater for children in the country and we won an award that said just that.

Out of all your accomplishments which also include ten years in advertising, marketing and grantmaking in the banking industry, what are you most proud of?

I am most proud of the fact that I helped start the Seattle Children’s Theatre and later returned as Development Director in 1997.  I spent five years of my life helping to put it on stronger financial footing with fundraising that was instrumental in raising money to build a technical pavilion.

But hopefully I’ll feel the same way about this organization as well, with its 40-year history of serving this community, the impressive hands-on work by the trustees, and the many people who care about this place.  There is still so much work to be done. And that is what is so exciting.