MAC chooses new arts curator

Ben Mitchell, a seasoned museum curator and art writer, is the next curator of art for the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

A selection committee picked him from more than 20 candidates following a national search that took six months, said Bruce Eldredge, the museum’s chief executive officer.

Mitchell, 52, will join the museum staff on Aug. 7.

He comes to the MAC most recently from the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper, Wyo., where he was the director of exhibits and programs.

Prior to that, Mitchell served as curator of collections and exhibitions at the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, and at the Muskegon Museum of Art in Muskegon, Mich. He also worked as director and curator of Whitman College’s Sheehan Gallery in Walla Walla.

“Ben’s curatorial qualifications – including his knowledge of regional art and artists – are unique,” museum board member Shaun O’L. Higgins, who headed the selection committee, said in a news release.

“I’ve been familiar with the MAC for years,” Mitchell said during a telephone interview Tuesday. “I’ve worked with a number of Northwest artists, so I don’t feel like I’ll be starting from scratch in a place where I don’t know anyone.”

In addition to his extensive curatorial experience, Mitchell has written and edited a number of publications on artists and exhibitions.

He is the author of “Play Disguised: The Jewelry of Ken Cory,” published by the Tacoma Art Museum and the University of Washington Press in 1997; “Brad Rude: Original Nature,” published by the Holter Museum of Art, Helena, in 1998; and “Into the Horizon: Theodore Waddell, 1960-2000,” published by the University of Washington Press in 2001.

His essays on art and culture have appeared in Artweek, New Art Examiner, Metalsmith, Reflex, High Ground and other journals.

“I am very passionate about what I do,” said Mitchell, “both in the art curating and in the publishing.”