My name is Karyn Miller and I’m thrilled to join the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities as their new Public Arts Manager. I have worked in the DC area’s arts and culture sector for more than 20 years and have been a proud resident of the District for just as long. Most recently, I served as the Arts, Culture, and History Program Manager for the City of Rockville where I was the top voice for arts, culture, and heritage.
Prior to working for Rockville, I served as the Director of Planning, Art, and Activation for the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District (BID) in downtown Washington, DC. I led large-scale temporary and permanent public art projects, creative placemaking, and planning efforts in close collaboration with DC’s planning and transportation agencies and federal partners. During my time at the BID, I worked with dozens of artists and community nonprofits, led landmark partnerships with the Smithsonian Institution, and presented public art with the European Union Delegation and various Embassies, while leading efforts to invite creatives to activate vacant space.
I also previously served as MoCA Arlington’s Curator and Director of Exhibitions, conceptualizing, and delivering a year-round exhibition schedule and public art program. Prior to that, I spent more than a decade building relationships with the region’s artists and arts community including time as the Director of Visual Arts at CulturalDC where I curated art installations in vacant retail spaces, developed arts space projects with the real estate community, and organized on and off-site installations, including several at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library.
I’ve had the opportunity to lead some amazing initiatives, public art efforts, and exhibitions but whatever I’m doing my through-line is an interest in the ways that public art can engage communities as co-authors and increase participation, visibility, and impact of the arts. I always love projects that integrate the arts and creativity in unexpected ways (artist-designed mini golf, anyone?) and involve new kinds of partners in our creative ecosystems. In my free time, I enjoy running, biking, gardening, cooking, and getting smoked by my spunky 9-year-old on the soccer field.