In her role as Executive Director since 2010, Maureen Brondyke has worked with a small team and artist-led board to provide over $100,000 in unrestricted grants for artists, create free studio spaces, establish paid artist fellowships, and open a low-commission gallery that functions as a project space for artists to mount new work every month. She supports a collaborative workplace that provides staff sabbaticals, residencies for working artists, and responsive programs to ground creative initiatives in what artists need and want.

Maureen co-founded Charlottesville’s CreativeMornings chapter, co-chaired the Creative Workers Committee for the Charlottesville Albemarle Cultural Plan, and has served as a guest juror for The Bridge PAI, Virginians for the Arts, McGuffey Art Center, and the Shenandoah Valley Art Center. In 2019, she received a “10 Under 40” Award from Charlottesville’s Daily Progress and Regional Chamber of Commerce. Among programs she has co-led at New City Arts is a creative placemaking initiative supported by ArtPlace America (2015) that is featured in their Field Scan on housing and the arts. Alongside New City Arts colleagues, Maureen is currently participating in a 1.5 year National Arts Strategies leadership cohort designed for and by leaders of arts and culture organizations committed to the deep work of systems change.

Maureen studied Printmaking at the University of Virginia, graduating with a degree in Studio Art in 2008. She loves walking long distances at a leisurely pace, playing pinball, and slowly knitting sweaters. She shares nachos every week at Beer Run with her husband, Calvin, and their two kids, Nelson and Avery.