Staff

Missi Smith

Interim Executive Director

Missi Smith has lived in the Methow Valley for 20 years.  She comes to Methow Arts after working as the Executive Director at The Merc Playhouse for eight years.  With a strong passion for the arts in general, her primary focus through the years has been performing arts.  She has been dancing since early childhood, choreographing for three decades, and acting onstage since moving to the Methow.  Missi has directed theater productions at The Merc and the Methow Valley Theater and she has taught dance classes in the after school programming at Methow Valley Elementary.  She has done artist in residency work with Methow Arts in the classroom, as well as virtually during the pandemic.
Check out her instructional videos here.

director.methowarts@gmail.com


Amber Zimmerman

Youth Arts  Initiative Instructor

Amber Zimmerman is the lead Youth Arts Initiative (YAI) Instructor at Alpine Lakes Elementary in the Cascade School District. Art is a way of life for Amber and her family. A fourth-generation artist, Amber earned her Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Art from Evergreen State College. Amber has taught art extensively in the Cascade School District, developing and delivering both the KArt and LEAAP (Leavenworth Elementary Art Appreciation Project) programs in K-2 and K-5 respectively. She is active in the Leavenworth arts community, participates in gallery exhibits, and teaches community art classes for students and adults. She has participated in Washington State’s Teaching Artist Training Lab (TAT Lab) and Icicle Fund’s Conservation, History, and Art (CHA) residency. A mother of two, Amber refers to art as “the great problem-solver” and looks forward to helping students explore visual arts in a strategic, sequential way.

amber@methowartsalliance.org


Margaret Kingston

Arts Education Director

Margaret is responsible for management of the Okanogan Region Arts Education Partnership for five school districts (Brewster, Omak, Okanogan, Methow and Paschal Sherman Indian School on the Colville Reservation) and for the Youth Arts Initiative programs in the Cascade and Methow Valley school districts. Margaret has taught a variety of art residencies for Methow Arts since she moved to the valley in 2012.  She attended Plymouth State University where she graduated with a teaching license for K-12 Art Education that she put to use as the K-8 Art Teacher in New Hampshire for 4 years.  She also develops her own art practice as an oil painter at her home studio known as “The Shedio”.  Margaret sells her work from her website MkOilPaintings.com, on Instagram @MkOilPaintings, in regional galleries, and local stores.  Learn more by visiting her Artist page or reading the 2016 Methow Arts Featured Artist article.  She also helps her husband Jonathan Baker at his manufacturing business eqpd gear.  Recreating outside with friends and being creative are her favorite things to do!

margaret@methowartsalliance.org


Patti Somerville

Program Coordinator

Patti is the Program Coordinator here at Methow Arts Alliance. She contributes to the successful delivery of the arts education programs, along with coordination of all other events brought to you by Methow Arts. She has lived in the Methow Valley for almost a decade. Throughout her time here, she has learned to enjoy the people, plants and animals that call the Methow home and thrill at the myriad of ways to enjoy them all with the changing seasons. A stay at home mom and super volunteer for many years, she has also run her own landscape maintenance business for the past 6 years. When she isn’t digging in the dirt, you can find her enjoying the trails year round, or holed up in her arts and craft room at home.She is passionate about raising good humans, her friends and family and sustaining the connections that make life worth living. Patti, her 3 school aged children, her husband and 2 cats live just outside Winthrop.

coordinator.methowarts@gmail.com