Meet Our New Executive Director
KAC Welcomes New Executive Director on September 1st 2023
The KAC welcomes Charlotte Coots to the team
The Kenai Art Center (KAC) is excited to announce the position of Executive Director has been filled by Charlotte Coots.
Originally from California, she moved to Homer in 2004. She is an active acrylic painter who has shown work at the Kenai Art Center and formerly participated in the Bunnell Street Art Center yearly plate project fundraiser. One of Coots’ acrylic paintings was awarded third place at the KAC’s biennial juried show in 2021.
Coots studied Visual and Performance art at Evergreen State University in Washington and finished her studies at Cal State San Marcos in 2004. While she was raising her oldest daughter, she worked as a fitness instructor and personal trainer to make ends meet. After moving to Homer in 2004 she met her now husband, and their family (now with two more children) ended up moving to Nikiski and then Kenai. Coots got involved in the art center at the KAC’s first mural show in 2019.
She remembers, “I got an invitation from another artist already involved in showing at the KAC and he invited me to be a part of the mural show. I had lived in the area since 2008 but didn’t even know the KAC was here until I stepped into the main gallery for the first mural artist planning meeting. I was so surprised to see how many other artists from our small community there were in the room. I left that meeting with such excitement to jump back into the arts and I began spending as much time as possible creating.”
Coots continued to be part of the mural project in following years and began to submit work to shows at the KAC as well as volunteering to help with the KAC’s First Friday Opening events.
As one of her first tasks, Coots is helping to book more workshops and events, bring other art forms (dance, live plays, etc) to the art center, recruit new local artists and hopes to bring more events that will pull people from the community into the art center.
Coots plan for the future: “I am hoping to help the KAC bring in more members, be more available to the community and to help individuals of our area want to be creative and try their hand at making art–especially if they don’t consider themselves creative or artistic” says Coots. One of the newer activities at the art center that Coots is very excited about is the KPen ArtHive. Coots explains: “This is Diane Dunn’s creation and she has brought this worldwide program right here to our KAC. Diane is a KAC board member and our volunteer coordinator. She knows how to reach out to the community and get people involved in creating art for themselves. We now have a monthly activity for people who want to come and make art. We supply everything they need–and they just show up, tap into their creativity and make whatever they want. It’s a free event and open to the community for all ages and all levels.
Coots also was part of bringing the TreeFort Theatre teen version play titled Marian to the art center for 8 performances in March of 2024. “Live theater in the main gallery of the art center is one example of how I would like to expand the kind of events we hope to host more of in the future”. These are the kinds of things I want to help support and make available to the community.”