Click photo to enlarge
Heather Ferrell has announced her resignation from the Salt Lake Art Center.

Heather Ferrell, executive director of the Salt Lake Art Center for the past 16 months, has announced her resignation. She is leaving to join her fiancé, an airline pilot, in Qatar.

Her tenure was marked by an innovative commission program linking artists and patrons outside the traditional gallery setting. She also broadened the center's community role with educational outreach programs. Ferrell also helped curate several of the center's large-scale exhibitions, including "All American: Defining Ourselves in a Time of Change."

Adam Price, president of the center's board of trustees, credited Ferrell with fortifying the center's connections with donors in tough economic times. "Heather got off to a great start, and she's leaving much too soon," Price said.

Ferrell's fiancé lived in the United States when she took the position, Price said, but then took a job overseas. "It was unexpected from Heather's end," he said.

Ferrell was attending the Western Museum Association conference in San Diego, and on Wednesday didn't return calls for comment. "After more than a year of commuting with a long-distance relationship, I've had to make the difficult choice to resign from the Art Center, and leave the wonderful community of Salt Lake City that has so warmly embraced me, so that I may be with my family," Ferrell said in the center's statement.

Ferrell served as associate curator of the Boise Art Museum and executive

Advertisement
director of the Salina Art Center in Kansas, before she was appointed in July 2008 to head Salt Lake Art Center. In 1994, Ferrell graduated with an art degree and French minor from Utah State University, and went on to earn a master's degree in arts history and museum studies from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1997.

Ferrell's resignation will become effective Dec. 4. The center's board of trustees will soon announce an interim director, and form a committee to find a successor.

"We're looking for someone who can bring a vision of what the center is and can be, is interested in community and dialogue, and in advancing its mission," Price said.

Similar to most arts organizations in Utah and nationally, the Salt Lake Art Center has experienced a drop in funds since fall of last year. In September, it received $25,000 for the retention of a full-time curator of eduction, a portion of $301,000 received by the Utah Arts Council through the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and distributed to 14 other Utah arts organizations.

Price said fundraising activities will come with the territory for any new executive director. "All things considered, though, the center is doing quite well," he said.