Monthaven Art and Cultural Center

Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center
Edit Content
Click on the Edit Content button to edit/add the content.
  • (615) 822-0789
Facebook Youtube Instagram Jki-envelope1-light
Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center
DONATE
Monthaven Arts & Cultural Center
From the

Director

From the

Director

Cheryl Strichik

Cheryl Strichik

Executive Director and CEO

It is my sincere pleasure to welcome you to the Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center, the crown-jewel of Sumner County arts organizations. I began my association with Monthaven in 2017, working at first as a volunteer director of external affairs. Monthaven was a humble operation at that time. We had all of 30 students enrolled in our art classes, and our budget was a scant $60,000 a year. But even then, I could tell Monthaven was a place of joy, love and infinite possibility.

With the help of my dear friends Lois Riggins-Ezzell, the legendary director emeritus of the Tennessee State Museum, and Susan Prado, a Nashville-based artist of keen imagination and generous spirit, we began to map out plans for Monthaven’s future. We envisioned Monthaven sitting at the center of an expanded arts campus, functioning as a kind of creative town square. Equality and inclusion would be the chief civic virtues in our visionary town. Art should be for everyone, so our art exhibitions and outreach programs to underrepresented communities would always be free.

Monthaven has changed a lot since I first arrived. The house has been transformed into a jewel-box art museum that has displayed the works of Pablo Picasso, Peter Max and more. Our school has now grown to more than 600 students, and our annual budget has increased tenfold. But our values and our vision have remained the same. Community engagement remains our top priority. Indeed, our “Between the Lines” healing arts program for military veterans and our outreach programs for youth and families bring positive change to thousands of people every year.

I invite you to pay our creative community a visit. Attend one of our art exhibitions. Enroll yourself or a child in one of our art classes. You’ll be glad you did. And if you get a chance, please stop by and say hello. My staff and I would be thrilled to meet you.

Cheryl Strichik

Cheryl Strichik
Executive Director and CEO

Robin Willis

HEALING ARTS COORDINATOR

Robin Willis is the MACC’s Healing Arts Coordinator. She also works as the Exhibition and Events Manager and Director of Outreach. Robin has a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Clemson University with a minor in Entrepreneurship. She is a multi-discipline artist with emphasis in writing, mixed media abstract painting, alternative process photography, collage, and book arts and binding. In addition to her art practices, she holds several healing modalities certificates, such as extensive kundalini yoga teacher training and education, Reiki master, systemic family constellation facilitator, and depth psychology-based therapy trainings. As an avid learner, she explores and encourages others in their exploration in art, psyche, and our relationship to the micro and macro worlds within and around us. Influenced by John Muir’s quote, When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe, she fuses art, healing, and organization throughout her work and personal life as a creative-scientist minded person.

Kaylin Warden

Creative Design and Operations Manager

Kaylin Warden serves as the MACC’s Creative Design and Operations Manager. In this post, she oversees the organization’s graphic design work for exhibitions, events and special projects. She also coordinates the MACC’s arts outreach activities and assists with bookkeeping, among other duties. Kaylin, above all, is passionate about the arts. It comes as no surprise, then, that she is now pursuing a master’s degree in art history. When she’s not at the MACC, you can find her reading her favorite books (especially ones dealing with maritime mysteries), cooking, gardening, playing with her cat and two dogs, and cheering for the Nashville Predators.

Ruth Chase

Regional Arts Director
Ruth Chase is the Regional Arts Director of Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center, joining the team in 2023. For Ruth, the job is all about community, bringing people together to uplift and educate artists and art lovers alike. Her role at Monthaven is to strengthen the local artist community and build connections that will enrich Hendersonville and our surrounding communities through art exhibitions, art education, and opportunities for regional artists.
 
Prior to joining Monthaven, Ruth worked in the arts for over 30 years and is a multimedia artist and graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute. Her artistic practice is inquiry-based and engages in community bridge-building. She was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation from the City of Los Angeles, curated and juried exhibitions, and has taught at the Crocker Art Museum.
 
Ruth was awarded an Artist-in-Residence for Artist Activating Communities through a grant from the California Arts Council for three consecutive years. Her film Belonging screened at both the 18th Annual Nevada City Film Festival and Wild & Scenic Film Festival. She has received the Legendary Female Artist of Venice award, and she has exhibited in The Crocker Kingsley, the Museum of Northern California Art, and the Diego Rivera Gallery at the San Francisco Art Institute. Ruth also continues her work as a Curatorial Consultant and Art director for the Californian Indigenous Research Project, where she has worked with the local tribe since 2018. 
Skip to content