Alumnus Linnea Fitterer promoted to public art manager for Cincinnati-based organization, Artworks
Linnea Fitterer, who earned a BA from the School of Visual Arts with an emphasis in Art History in 2014, has just been promoted to the position of Public Art Manager for the Cincinnati based organization called ArtWorks. In this role, Fitterer will oversee a variety of new and existing public art projects from conception to completion. The Public Art Manager serves as the primary point person for artists, community partners, city administrators, and vendors. Moreover, the position includes the facilitation of community engagement sessions to encourage community input into the final design of each public art project.
ArtWorks is famous in Cincinnati for most of the vibrant murals around the city. Fitterer states that: “I was drawn to this organization because of the effort they put into engaging and reviving the community through art. The arts have significantly affected the economic growth of dismantled and crime-ridden downtown neighborhoods. I was also interested because in 1997 the organization was started by two women and has grown to upwards of 20 employees since then.”
Fitterer was hired into this new position after holding her previous title at ArtWorks as Talent Art Coordinator for only four months.
Fitterer credits her time as MSUM as crucial to preparing her for the new job which requires research, communication skills, organizational skills, and advocacy. While working on her degree at MSUM, she presented a research paper on the fashion icon Vivienne Westwood at the MSUM SAC conference in 2013 (and was featured on the SAC web page). She also presented an academic paper at the Red River Valley Women’s Studies Conference at UND in the fall of 2013. With her interest in museum work, she helped organize a special exhibition devoted to book cover designs for MSUM’s New Rivers Press in the fall of 2014 that was displayed in the Library and Faculty Development Center. Her professional museum experience was also developed through two separate internships at the Plains Art Museum as an Assistant in Collections as well as an Assistant in Curatorial work.