Kate Jones

Background

About Kate Jones

Kate moved to Telluride, CO in 2010 to become the Executive Director of Telluride Arts—aka The Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities, the Local Arts Council established in 1971. Prior to moving to Telluride, Kate was the director of Methow Arts, a Local Arts Council in rural Washington State. During her tenure at Methow Arts, she expanded arts education programming across seven rural and diverse schools, developed a popular performing arts series, expanded the Methow Arts Festival, and established a program to coalesce and promote the arts and artists in the region. In her position, Kate spearheaded an effort for community mobilization, visioning, planning, site evaluation, and the purchase of a six-acre forest service complex in Twisp, WA. The project, named TwispWorks, has been transformed into a vibrant cultural campus with artist studios, innovative start-ups, solar panels, a brewery, an outdoor stage. an interpretive center, a native plant garden, a natural dye garden, public art, event spaces, and more. While in WA, Kate served on the Washington State Arts Commission, the Okanogan Economic Development District, and the Washington State Arts Alliance. Kate took the position of Executive Director of Telluride Arts in 2010, where she has leveraged the Local Arts Council for community connection and preservation, and cultural vitality. In this role, she has helped realize a Cultural Master Plan update, the founding of the Telluride Arts District, the expansion of Telluride Art Walk, the Telluride Art + Architecture Weekend, the Telluride Gallery Guide, galleries and offices on the Main Street, two collaborative artist studio spaces in the region, and other programming that ensures the arts are part of the cultural fabric of the community. In her role as Executive Director, she spearheaded the development planning, purchase negotiation, stabilization, and community vision for the Telluride Transfer Warehouse, a National Historic Landmark building in Telluride's historic downtown which is being realized as a community cultural hub. Kate is a nature lover and an avid skier, hiker, and frequent dipper in alpine lakes, who grew up playing in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. You can still find her playing outside in every season.