Staff & Board

Catherine Anchin
Executive Director

Catherine joined the museum in 2021 as Executive Director, where she leads the direction of the museum and works closely with the Board of Directors to deliver strategic objectives. She brings extensive experience in arts fundraising and administration, as well as a commitment to contemporary visual arts.

Her career includes tenures at major national and regional museums, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, Ohio.

She also serves as arts faculty for Leadership Arlington and has served as a university guest lecturer and conference panelist on topics such as creativity, museum fundraising, arts social media, and volunteering.

She holds a BA in Art History and an MA in Museum Studies from Syracuse University, as well as a graduate certificate in Nonprofit Management from the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Case Western Reserve University.

Amber Cruz
Education Coordinator

Amber joined the museum in 2022 as an Education Coordinator, where she develops and manages education programs, including art-making classes, summer camps, and birthday parties.

Previously, Amber worked as an administrator and arts educator at American University where she taught studio art and supported the Department of Literature.

Amber is also an artist and works predominantly in drawing and sculpture, creating with materials such as domestic objects and food as a way to examine memory and labor within the home. As someone who works with unconventional materials, Amber enjoys introducing her students to nontraditional materials and conceptual approaches to making art. Her work has been exhibited at the Katzen Arts Center, Chesapeake Arts Center, Nefarious Contemporary and with other arts organizations in the Washington, DC metro area.

Amber holds a BA in Visual Arts from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and an MFA in Studio Art from American University.

Lia Ferro
Education Coordinator

Lia joined the museum in 2018, first as an Art Instructor and then as an Education Coordinator in 2019. As an Education Coordinator, Lia develops and manages education programs, including art-making classes, summer camps, workshops and enrichment activities in the greater Arlington community, such as Arlington Public Schools and nonprofit organizations.

Lia is a life-long artist with a passion for arts education being accessible to everyone. In her personal art practice, Lia works exclusively with repurposed materials to create more environmentally responsible art.

Lia holds a BS in Sociology and Gender, Sex, and Women’s Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Adun Henry
Visitor Services Associate

Adun joined the museum in 2021 as an intern and as a Visitor Services Associate in 2022. As the Visitor Services Associate, Adun supports the visitor experience, operations, exhibitions, and programming.

In addition, Adun developed the museum’s Teen Sneaker event in March 2022 where teens from around the Washington, DC area customized sneakers for the public and for donation to the Wanda Alston Foundation, an organization that helps teens in Washington, DC.

Adun is an artist with a passion for concept art and its use in major motion pictures, film, and animation.

Amanda Jirón-Murphy
Curator & Resident Artist/Collector Liaison

Amanda joined the museum in 2020, first as a contract curator then as Curator & Resident Artist/Collector Liaison in 2022. In her role, Amanda curates the resident artists’ exhibitions, manages the artist residency program, and the museum’s collectors’ program, a public program sharing knowledge about art collecting and supporting artists careers.

In addition, Amanda organized the museum’s 2021 exhibition We Can’t Predict Tomorrow, which explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on artistic practice within the regional contemporary arts sector.

Amanda has served as the Gallery Director at Hamiltonian, where she directed and curated exhibitions, art fairs, and projects for an international roster of over forty emerging and mid-career artists and as the Coordinator of Public Programs and Adult Interpretation at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. She also interned with the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy.

Amanda has also served as a guest speaker and panel moderator at cultural institutions and schools around the Washington, DC area and has written for many publications including: The Rib and DIRT DMV.

She holds a BA in Art History from John Cabot University in Rome, Italy and an MA in Modern and Contemporary Art and Connoisseurship from Christie’s Education in London, England.

Blair Murphy
Curator of Exhibitions

Blair joined the museum in 2018 as Curator of Exhibitions, where she shapes the vision for the exhibitions program and curates numerous exhibitions. Previous exhibitions include: Take a Number: Artists and Bureaucracy, Stretched, Applied Forces,  Transitional Objects, Over, Under, Forward, Back, and By Proxy, the museum’s first virtual exhibition. In addition, she launched the museum’s biennial exhibition series, Assembly, in 2019 and Global Spotlight, a new series focused on international artists, in 2022. She also served as Acting Executive Director of the museum from October 2020 to May 2021.

Previously, Blair served as the Managing Director at DC Arts Center, Adjunct Faculty at George Mason University, and Program Director at Washington Project for the Arts.

Her previous curatorial projects include exhibitions at The Kitchen (New York, NY), Washington Project for the Arts (Washington, DC), Trestle Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Field Projects (New York, NY), VisArts Rockville (Rockville, MD), and with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Blair has served as a guest speaker and panel moderator at cultural institutions around the Washington, DC area and New York, including the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum. She has also written for many publications including: Hyperallergic, Bmore Art, and DCist.

She was a Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow of the Whitney Independent Study Program. She holds a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art and an MA from Georgetown University.

Rachel Piering
Events Manager

Rachel joined the museum in 2022 as Events Manager, where she manages the Space Rental program and the Corporate Creativity program, a team-building private event opportunity where companies can explore art-making and other team facilitation activities at the museum.

Rachel has fifteen years of event experience in the non-profit and corporate sector where she plans both small and large events including: annual fundraisers, galas, golf tournaments, marketing events, and private receptions.

As an entrepreneur, she has grown her business, Tempo Event Consulting, over the past six years representing clients in the Washington, DC area. As an artist, she has both planned and participated in many art exhibitions as a semi-abstract painter and event planner.

Rachel holds a BFA and an MBA from Stetson University with a focus on Marketing.

Rhe’a Roland Singer
Operations Manager

Rhe’a joined the museum in 2022 as Operations Manager, where she oversees daily administration operations and manages the facility.

Previously, Rhe’a worked as a Costume Designer, Wardrobe Supervisor and a Costume Technician with a variety of educational and professional theatres where she also managed budgets, costume loans, volunteers and production schedules. She also has served as a Graduate Teacher, Executive Assistant, and Alterations Manager, bringing structure to artistic spaces.

Rhe’a is also an artist and creates garment-based sculptures and wearable art from fabric as well as found materials. Her background in film and theatrical costuming is used to create whimsical- yet provocative-forms and visual textures. Her work has been featured at the George Washington University Arts Walk, the Workhouse Arts Center, and the Lucy Burns Museum.

She holds a BA in Theatre: Production Design from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and an MFA from George Washington University.

Board