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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Michael Dudich
Former Executive Director
Biggs Museum of American Art
Michael Dudich arrived at the Biggs Museum of American Art in 2022, taking over the leading art museum
in the state capital of Dover following the retirement of predecessor Charles Guerin. The former deputy director for the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum
of Art in Hartford, Conn., was no stranger though, having previously served on the Biggs’ board of directors for five years while working at a Washington, D.C., museum. Dudich plans to reinvigorate the Delaware museum that focuses on American Art of the 18th and 19th centuries, and has already struck a major exhibit of Wyeth family artwork spanning three generations. The Biggs museum will also be examining how to use new facilities after acquiring 15/21 The Green in historic Old Dover.
ALMA MATER: University of Akron (Ohio) BOARDS: Delaware Arts Alliance
Q&A: Favorite thing about Delaware? The genuine welcome you get from everyone you meet.
Sara Ganter
Executive Director
Rehoboth Art League
Sara Ganter took over as executive director of the Rehoboth Art League, Sussex County’s first organized cultural arts center, back in 2019. Through her tenure, she has helped the organization survive the COVID pandemic and return to a robust calendar of exhibitions, roster of educational offerings, and a wide array of arts-driven events, all of which draw more than 25,000 community members each year. For more than
80 years, the Rehoboth Art League
has been a beacon for the arts in Sussex County, and its Henlopen
Acres campus continues to spotlight established and upcoming artists while bringing arts education programs
out to underserved communities. The Rehoboth Art League is also one of the few organizations in Delaware that actively acquires art for its permanent Collection of Fine Art, now counting hundreds of pieces.
ALMA MATERS: Syracuse University, City University of New York Graduate Center
BOARDS: Arts Consortium of Delaware, Delaware Museum Association, Rehoboth Summer Children’s Theatre
Q&A: What was your first job? My first job was waiting tables in the dining hall at Cokesbury Village in Hockessin.
Molly Giordano
Executive Director
Delaware Art Museum
Molly Giordano grew up with a
love of the arts, as her mother ran a community art center in her West Virginia hometown, so it makes sense that in 2010 she joined the Delaware Art Museum, a century-old art institution in Wilmington. She led the “Art is Everywhere” campaign, bringing reproductions of masterworks from the collection to cities throughout Delaware, and helped complete the museum’s strategic plan, rebranding, and fundraising initiatives. Through COVID, Giordano led the museum as an interim executive director and the board rewarded her by naming her
the new permanent director in 2021. Among her biggest accomplishments since taking over is landing “The Rossettis” exhibit of Pre-Raphaelite art in partnership with the esteemed Tate Britain that runs through January 2024.
ALMA MATERS: University of Delaware, University of Pennsylvania, Rosemont College
BOARDS: Delaware Arts Alliance, Delaware Fund for Women
Q&A: What was your first job? My very first job was teaching ice skating. My first real job was on a political campaign.
Patti Grimes
Executive Director
Joshua M. Freeman Foundation & Carl M. Freeman Foundation
As the leader of the Joshua M. Freeman Foundation (JMFF) in Selbyville, Patti Grimes has helped to create a new live art mecca for Sussex County through the Freeman Arts Pavilion, which has hosted the likes of Cheap Trick, Steve Miller Band, Darius Rucker, Sheryl Crow, Patti LaBelle, and more in recent years. More than 750,000 people have attended the pavilion or the JMFF’s Arts Education and Community Access programs that venture out into the community since 2008. She also has helped oversee a capital campaign
that is raising millions to build out the pavilion, bolstering the local economy. As executive director of the Carl M. Freeman Foundation, a private family foundation, Grimes directs millions
of dollars in grants to more than 1,000 nonprofits in Sussex County and in Maryland.
ALMA MATER: James Madison University
BOARDS: Delaware Technical Community College, Leadership Delaware, Inc., Southern Delaware Tourism Advisory Board, Sussex County Coalition
Q&A: What’s something interesting about you that isn’t on your resume? I love the outdoors and am an avid walker and hiker, trekking over 2,500 miles a year.
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