Virginia Discovery Museum Announces New Executive Director

The Virginia Discovery Museum Board of Directors is pleased to announce its new executive director will be Amy Wicks-Horn of Charlottesville.

Wicks-Horn, a native of Franklin, North Carolina, has served as director of annual giving for the University of Virginia Children’s Hospital since 2007, and prior to that was assistant director of annual giving at the University of Virginia since 2004.

A magna cum laude graduate of the University of Virginia, Wicks-Horn also holds a master’s in public administration from the University of Washington. She formerly served as executive director of an education-based non-profit for children in Seattle.

"I am thrilled to join the incredible team at the Virginia Discovery Museum," said Wicks-Horn. "I look forward to working with our staff, board, and the community to fulfill the Museum’s mission to ‘bring young children and their families together to engage minds, excite imaginations, and explore the world around them.’ I am very excited to get started! "

"This was an extremely competitive search," said Elizabeth Chew, Board Chair and member of the search committee comprised of current and former Board members. "We were very impressed with the applicant pool, which came to us from all across the United States. Amy had the experience and high level of energy that we were looking for, and we believe she will be an outstanding leader for the organization."

Wicks-Horn replaces the retiring Peppy Linden, who over a 20-year period has grown the Virginia Discovery Museum from infancy into a Downtown Mall landmark and education destination for thousands of area children and families. Since relocating to the Downtown Mall in 1990, the Virginia Discovery Museum has welcomed over 885,000 visitors and become an anchor and economic driver for the Mall’s East End.

Wicks-Horn will begin work on January 3, 2011.

An Instrument Petting Zoo

New Art Show in the Program Room!

For the next month, the Program Room of the Virginia Discovery Museum will be hosting the solo exhibition of local artist, Jesse Wells. Her show, which consists of pen, gouache, and gesso on paper, highlights the “dynamics between individuals and the moments of ambivalence through which they understand the world.” Wells presents figures interacting with each other or standing alone, but all are on a “quest to navigate each other, in search of what is good.”

In this show, her work centers on the interaction between young adolescents and the innocent way in which they view the world around them. She also focuses on their, perhaps naïve, relationships with each other. As said by Wells, she “teases out the moments of naïve and dangerous exploration – actions that come from an innocent place that might still bring about irrevocable knowledge.” Come down to the museum to view this new and original show. If you wish to purchase any works, please ask a staff member or email the artist at jesskawells@gmail.com.