Executive Director

Monica Miller
director@gallery-one.org

Monica Miller has worked with arts organizations for over 20 years in fundraising, grants management and professional development for artists. Monica’s primary responsibility is to ensure that Gallery One is relevant to the community it serves. One of her favorite parts of her role is as the co-curator with Renee Adams. Together, they strive to create a dynamic exhibition schedule that represents different voices, skill levels, and ultimately creates community connections. Before moving to Ellensburg from Seattle, she oversaw artist grants and professional development at Artist Trust and was a member of SOIL, an artist collective. She also had a brief stint as the Fremont Solstice Parade Director. Monica considers her major accomplishment the advocacy of percent for art program with the Ellensburg Arts Commission, but is a daily advocate for artists. She holds a BA from the College of William and Mary and an MA from Johns Hopkins University in Museum Studies. She once set out to be a professional potter but continues to dabble in clay at Gallery One’s ceramics studio.

Exhibit Coordinator

Renee Adams
renee@gallery-one.org

In tandem with her position at Gallery One, Renee Adams fosters her own creative studio practice. She is a board member and helped found PUNCH Projects, formerly PUNCH Gallery in Seattle. As a three-time Artist Trust GAP Grant recipient, a 2021 McMillen Foundation Fellow, and curator for ArtWA Art in Public Place Program, she remains active in the regional art scene. Renee received her MFA from Central Washington University in 1999. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, traveling, and exploring the wilds with boots and skis.

Gallery Assistant

Jacqueline Trujillo
jacque@gallery-one.org

Jacqueline Trujillo is a Utah native with a BA in Art from Southern Utah University and an MFA in Drawing from Central Washington University. Jacqueline has been teaching at Gallery One for the Community School of Arts since 2017 and has been working as a lecturer at Central Washington University since 2018. She continues her studio practice as a Gallery One Resident Artist working with paints, charcoal, and encaustics in traditional methods and mixed media manipulation. Jacqueline’s artwork explores the personal narrative through familiarity and memory. Her work attempts to explain the precarious relationship between reality and recollection, finding the balance between honest expression and faltering memory. In her free time, Jacqueline likes to explore new art practices, spend time with friends and travel.

Operations Manager

Dava Ihrke
dava@gallery-one.org

As the Operations Manager, Dava Ihrke’s role encompasses managing inventory, budget and product displays for the gift shop; coordinating private and community events; and cultivating and maintaining relationships with artist vendors and community members. Additionally, she teaches adult ceramic hand-building and summer camp classes at Gallery One.

Dava is a Pacific Northwest native with experience in a broad range of industries including aviation, manufacturing, retail, graphic design, real-estate, higher education, non-profit and birth work. Having owned and operated various small businesses, she brings real-world experience in administration and bookkeeping.

Dava loves working with clay and mainly creates functional, hand-built work, but her curious and adventurous nature are allowing her to explore other forms of work as well. She has taught ceramics in her home studio for a local home school community incorporating history, math and chemistry for a well rounded course. In the past, she explored other art forms, such as photography and paint. She is a lifelong learner and enjoys studying cultural history, archaeology and religion. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, exploring food preservation techniques, spending time with her husband and two dogs, and whenever possible, traveling to see her children and grandchildren on the West side of the state.

Communications Manager

John Durham
john@gallery-one.org

Trained in music theory and composition, a published author, a self-educated designer and lifelong learner, John is obsessed with sounds, words, human-centered design, modern art, and lines that point somewhere. He is equally passionate about creating inclusive spaces for the community to learn and create and is excited to continue supporting and promoting the arts through his role at Gallery One.

A native of southwest Washington, John landed in Ellensburg in 1998 to attend Central Washington University and never had the heart to leave. His undergraduate and graduate studies focused on music theory and composition, orchestration, electronic music, and multimedia performance.

John spends a lot of his free time volunteering in the community. He is the current board president of the Ellensburg Dance Ensemble (formerly Central Washington Dance Ensemble), the nonprofit organization that owns and operates The Studio in downtown Ellensburg, and a member-at-large with the Laughing Horse Arts Foundation.

When not volunteering, John enjoys family time with his wife, three kids, and two dogs, and engaging in activities that surprise him or teach him new things.

Gallery Assistant

Clay Maer
clay@gallery-one.org

Clay Maer is delighted to continue her lifetime of connection with the arts and artists in her position with Gallery One. Her education focused on Art History/English, BA, Liberal Arts, University of St. Thomas, Houston followed by years with nonprofit organizations and a certification in nonprofit management.  Working with Shakespeare at Winedale at the University of Texas at Austin, Austin Children’s Museum, Denver Center for the Performing Arts and most recently, Allied Arts of Yakima Valley, brought opportunities to learn from directors whose vision and tenacity made possible celebrations and support for Art: visual, literary and performing. She enjoys watching Washington’s changing seasons, reading the next good book and being with her children and grandchildren.

Community School of the Arts Coordinator

Amy Davison
amy@gallery-one.org

Amy Davison is an active participant in the performing arts as well as the visual arts in Ellensburg. She performs music in a community band, teaches art to young artists, and performs with community on stage or in the orchestra pit. She enjoys the community outreach that is a part of the Education Coordinator’s position including helping with our local Kittitas Early Learning Coalition STREAM events for birth to 5 year olds. She grew her passion for teaching during a year of co-teaching homeschool preschool with a friend for their daughters and then moving into a teaching position here at Gallery One the following fall. Amy grew up in Moses Lake and moved to Ellensburg to attend Central Washington University where she earned a BA in Graphic Design. She enjoys reading a good book, baking fancy cakes and cookies for friends and family, and learning new art techniques.

Ceramics Studio Manager & Resident Artist

Natalie Andrus
natalie@gallery-one.org

Since December of last year, Natalie has been teaching a variety of ceramic classes at Gallery One to all ages. Previously she taught at Mudfire Studio & Gallery in Atlanta, GA. Additionally, she has experience from various classes at Central, at Peninsula Community College in Port Angeles, WA, and from work exchanges at Millbrook Clayworks and Mudfire. She is primarily a wheel-thrower and functional artist, but also teaches hand-building and glaze development. Her current goals are to use art to encourage the greater community to realize the Central Washington region for what it is and to educate people about the disappearing shrub steppe that is our home.

CWU Work Study / Ceramic Tech

Kendall Ryan

Kendall is a CWU student majoring in psychology and minoring in ceramics, which is her true love when it comes to making art. Her favorite things to create are hand built vessels of any kind. When she’s not at work or in the studio, she loves to bake, watch documentaries, be out in nature, and spend time with her fiancée and their cat.

Community School of the Arts Instructors

Natalie Andrus
Marte Fallshore
Tabitha Klucking
Dani Parkins
Becky Parmenter

Volunteers

Marte Fallshore
Kassandra Eller
Ed Bliss
Mary Tosch

Accounting Specialist

Dina Yook
dina@gallery-one.org