New Ellen Noël executive director ready to dive in

Yahoo

23-04-2025

Apr. 22—Nicole Herden realized her affinity for museum work while doing internships in college and she has stayed dedicated to the vocation for about 20 years.
Herden just stepped into her new position as executive director of the Ellen Noël Art Museum April 14.
Herden began as an intern for different state museums and art museums while in undergraduate school and continued that internship work primarily in the curatorial and registration departments.
She really enjoyed working in an art museum, particularly the exhibition rotation, working with artists and maintaining a collection.
"I continued that through graduate school coursework, and that work sort of transitioned and led me to pursue a full-time career in that field," Herden said. "I pretty quickly determined through those internships, that was the career I wanted to pursue. That was at the time I was pursuing my MFA in the visual arts, and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to figure out that that's what I wanted to do," Herden said. "That led me to pursue another master's in art history to continue that work."
She was then able to land the curatorial assistant position at the Phoenix Art Museum, and then eventually a registrar position.
"Through the years, I had the opportunity to be promoted and work my way up to different leadership positions. I have enjoyed it tremendously on so many different levels, and am very grateful to have had the opportunity to pursue this career," Herden said.
She said opportunities like the one at the Ellen Noël don't come around often, especially when there are really exciting chapters underway, "like once-in-a-lifetime, milestone projects."
The museum is conducting a capital campaign and expansion project.
As of April 15, the capital campaign is 64% complete, according to information from the museum.
The tentative timeline for completion of construction is the end of August.
After that, there are specifications they will have to meet for housing artwork.
They will also have to have to operate their humidity and temperature controls, maintaining systems consistently at 43% humidity, 68 degrees F, 24-hours a day, for a 90-day period.
After that is accomplished, they will move art back into the location. The first exhibition, and opening to the public, is tentatively scheduled for early December 2025.
What drew Herden to the Ellen Noël was the passion that the staff and board have for the institution.
"There is incredible support and passion and it's a rare opportunity to have the ability to work with a team like that. That was very appealing to me, and certainly I have experience working with regional communities. I felt really drawn to the Permian Basin community and the exciting growth that is happening culturally (and) economically within our region. For those reasons, I was really excited. I love the Southwest, having lived in Arizona and having an affinity for Southwestern art in general, and just regional art and contemporary art," Herden said.
Among her priorities are planning and strategy for moving into the new building and getting to know the staff, board members.
She's also looking forward to learning more about the community and stakeholders to better understand the area and where there may be opportunities to serve more audiences.
"I'm excited to get to know our partners and identify ... new future partners," Herden said.
She's also looking toward working on a strategic planning process to guide the work that she, the board and staff do over the next couple of years.
"That's always really important, since it truly functions as a North Star, so to speak, of all the work that we do. And then certainly, of course, the capital campaign. The community and the board have done amazing work in making progress on that, but there's certainly more to do to wrap it up, and I am eager to participate in that and bring my own energy and excitement and hopefully have a quick impact on finalizing that campaign goal," Herden said.
As for if she has a favorite piece of art, she couldn't say.
"It's like choosing your favorite child. ... Art is just so fascinating to me. I'm always intrigued, whether you know, it's by an unknown, unrecognized artist or it's by a really well known, established artist. I'm always very curious about the process of making art, and I'm always eager to come up with my own interpretation of the art and that is what I really enjoy," Herden said.
It's kind of a transformative time for both the Ellen Noël Art Museum and The Museum of the Southwest in Midland, which also has a new executive director, Scott O'Donnell.
"I'm excited to meet that new director," Herden said.
She added that she hadn't yet reached out to O'Donnell, but is excited about doing that very soon.
"I know that there has been collaboration and partnership, but I don't doubt that there's probably more opportunity for other considerations and other ways to do that. It's exciting that we're both going to be new and we can sort of vision and brainstorm on the clean slate, so to speak," Herden said.
Most recently, she served as executive director of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, where she ran a multidisciplinary organization with an accredited art museum, theater, and art school.
Her previous experience includes the Executive Director role at the Museum of Nebraska Art as well as curatorial and collections roles at Boise Art Museum, Phoenix Art Museum, and Arizona State University Art Museum.
Herden, a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, a master's of fine arts from Boise State University and a master's in art history from Arizona State.