WAG turned the spotlight on the Rockland Center for the Arts in our May issue, offering an overview of the West Nyack-based organization in advance of its 70th anniversary Legacy Gala.
Daly Flanagan, then the acting director of RoCA, took time to share her thoughts with us on both the Hudson Valley institution’s storied history – and its future.
And now, the organization founded by arts world notables that included Helen Hayes, Aaron Copland, Henry Varnum Poor and Burgess Meredith among others, has shared some news: Flanagan has officially been named RoCA’s executive director. She succeeds Julianne Ramos, who retired in 2016.
Flanagan has been the school director since 2000, in that role responsible for implementing RoCA’s exhibition-based outreach school tours and workshops. She instituted the Rockland Visual Arts Education Conference in conjunction with BOCES and Rockland County Public School Art teachers, giving teachers in the surrounding counties new approaches to art with students.
Flanagan received her bachelor’s degree of fine art in painting and rintmaking from San Diego State University in California and her master’s in arts administration in visual arts from Bank Street College of Education/Parsons School of Design in New York. Prior to coming to RoCA, she worked for The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles as its museum educator. She moved to New York in 1993 and was the coordinator of School and Family Programs for the Museum of Arts and Design, formerly the American Craft Museum. Daly then worked as director at the Elsa Mott Ives Gallery and the Craft Students League in New York.
She is also an adjunct faculty member at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill.
The announcement also includes that Flanagan, is “excited to reinstitute community collaborative partnerships to present programs that best meet the needs of our community. She has already reinstituted the music series at RoCA. She is one of the founding members for Rockland Culture and is a board member of Rockland21C Collaborative for children and youth. She is committed to the process of experiencing, responding to, creating and exhibiting art.”
WAG extends congratulations to Flanagan.
For more, visit rocklandartcenter.org.
– Mary Shustack
