You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
“As a director,<br />
you have to<br />
multitask. The<br />
fundamental<br />
thing is to have<br />
a strong vision<br />
of what you think<br />
your institution<br />
should be doing.”<br />
Amada Cruz has lived in many different large cities and worn many hats, career-wise. But the main artery<br />
that runs through her entire curriculum vitae is simple—it’s art. About a year ago, she was named Sybil<br />
Harrington Director of the Phoenix Art Museum (PAM).<br />
Cruz was recruited to PAM from her previous position at Artpace in San Antonio, a large artist residency program<br />
(not to be confused with Artspace, a different program based in North Carolina). Artpace, founded by Texas<br />
philanthropist Linda Pace (lindapacefoundation.org), is 21 years old. The program supports three artists per year:<br />
one local, one national and one from abroad, for specified periods of time. Cruz served at Artpace for two years,<br />
first as a guest curator in 1996 and again after she was asked to return a couple of years later to work full-time.<br />
Prior to working at Artpace, Cruz served as program director at United States Artists in Los Angeles, a nonprofit<br />
organization—supported by the Ford, Rockefeller, Rasmuson and Prudential foundations—that awards<br />
unrestricted grants of $50,000 each to dozens of working artists in the United States each year.<br />
“It was fascinating. I did that for seven years, and I feel like I got this very privileged view of art across many<br />
disciplines,” she says. She served on many panels for these grants and reviewed countless applications.<br />
This helped inform her of what was really going on in the trenches of contemporary visual art. She worked to<br />
balance the list of nominators with experts from many different disciplines. “People who run regional grant<br />
JAVA 9<br />
MAGAZINE
Change language