Philly’s Fabric Workshop and Museum names new executive director

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The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia has a new executive director.

Kelly Shindler, currently director of exhibition for the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, will step into the leadership role in September. Shindler replaces interim director Harry Philbrick, who has served in that role since previous director Christina Vassallo left more than a year ago to take another position in Cincinnati.

Throughout her career, Shindler has held several positions in the arts sector, including developing content for the PBS-TV series Art21, acting as associate curator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and working in various capacities at the Pew Center.

Board chair Maja Paumgarten said Shindler’s experience in many different aspects of the arts sector made her a standout for the job of overseeing an exhibition museum centered around a visiting artist residency program.

“She’s a curator, she’s worked with artists. She also understands the landscapes of grant-making with her work at Pew. She’s lived in different parts of the country,” Paumgarten said. “She has worn many different hats. With all that experience we felt, as the search committee, that she has this awareness that is vital.”

Shindler said the opportunity to lead the Fabric Workshop was “too good to pass up.”

“I’ve loved the Fabric Workshop since before I ever arrived in Philadelphia,” said Shindler. “It was a formative institution for me for my very early years at Art21 which I joined about 20 years ago. I’ve always loved the Fabric Workshop. I love that it has a studio at the center of its mission and its building, and functions as a laboratory where artists can dream and make things they never thought possible before.”

The Fabric Workshop and Museum was founded in 1977 by Marion “Kippy” Stroud, who ran it until her death in 2015. Since then, the organization has seen three directors and interim directors.

Shindler has been tangentially involved with the Fabric Workshop along with many other Philadelphia organizations through her work at the Pew Center, where for eight years she has stewarded grants and other forms of support. Her role at Pew did not give her authority to distribute money to specific projects, but rather to develop and maintain Pew’s granting programs and procedures.

One of Shindler’s first tasks will be to find a new chief curator. Current curator D.J. Hellerman will depart for Cleveland at the end of the year. How Shindler reimagines the chief curator role could have a significant impact on the organization.

She must prepare for the institution’s upcoming 50th anniversary in 2027. But, first she plans to take a long look at what she’s inherited, she said.

“Like so many arts institutions and organizations, it has been impacted by the pandemic. That’s something I see in great detail from my perch here at the Pew Center,” Shindler said. “It’s really a sector-wide phenomenon and the Workshop is in a really wonderful position to think about its next 50 years and establish where it wants to be next.”