Grace Meils will return to Traver Gallery in mid-April.
Seattle’s Pratt Fine Arts Center’s Director of Development since 2008, Grace Meils will be returning to her former employer, Traver Gallery as co-director for the Seattle and Tacoma gallery locations. With a resume that includes positions at the Center on Contemporary Art and the Seattle Art Museum, Meils had served as Associate Director of Traver Gallery, where she had worked for five years before departing for Pratt.
Meils came to Pratt in November 2008 with the task of reorganizing the center’s development and communications department. “Our goal for her was to organize and professionalize our development office,” Pratt Executive Director Michelle Bufano told the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet in an email exchange. “She was tasked with things like cleaning up the database so we could be better at communicating, reporting and understanding the history of supporters, starting a major gifts program, stretching our reach for foundations and corporations, and building our donor base.”
At her new position as Traver Gallery co-director alongside Sarah Traver, Meils will be returning to an environment she knows well. “We have complementary skill sets, which makes collaborating on projects really satisfying,” said Meils in an interview with the Hot Sheet. The new partnership will involve working together on all components of gallery management, including strategic planning for the galleries, show scheduling, special events, marketing, public relations, and cultivating gallery and artist/client relationships.
Meils will officially rejoin Traver’s staff on April 19th. Looking forward to her return and the continuation of a relationship between the gallery and Meils, Sarah Traver told the Hot Sheet: “Grace brings spirit and passion to her work, as well as a great intelligence and an aptitude for strategic thinking. We recognize that she is an asset to the community, and that her unique abilities, in tandem with her passion, will be a significant asset to this business.”
—Alica Forneret