About

FIA Leadership

We Just Want to Have Fun

The Flint Institute of Arts Museum + Art School connects diverse communities through fun, creative, and inspiring visual arts experiences.

When we were working on revising the FIA’s mission statement last year, we solicited feedback from staff, Trustees, and visitors to help us shape, in a just a few words, who we are and the place we want to be. One word that came up again and again was “fun.” As a museum professional with a background in art history, I was trained to take art and artists very seriously, which is seemingly the opposite of fun. So, at first, I was on the fence about whether we should include this word in our mission statement, however, when I thought back to my first museum experiences, what I remember most is that they were nothing but fun.

Going on a school field trip was exciting on its own, but an excursion to a museum was exponentially good. The large, complex building with dark galleries filled with mysterious objects fed my imagination. I felt a sense of awe and wonder looking at these objects, and I was transported away from my ordinary life. This impression never left me, and when I took an Art History 101 class as an undergrad, the joy I felt as a young girl came back to me in a powerful way. The idea that I could study and write about art and artists and get paid for it was a dream, and I could hardly believe that it was a possibility. Twenty-four years of working in museums, and I find myself needing to be reminded what ignited my passion in the first place; art is fun.

Fun at the FIA is not one-dimensional, it can encompass many different experiences taking an Art School class, visiting a special exhibition, attending an event (like the upcoming Wine Tasting on April 20th), meeting a friend for lunch or coffee at the Palette Café, watching a Hot Shop glassblowing demo with kids or grandkids, listening to a mind-expanding lecture, watching an art house film, or shopping for a unique gift at the Art School Gallery and Museum Shop.

In the pages that follow you will see opportunities to participate in all the above, or just one of these things. Whatever you decide to do, my hope is that you will leave feeling like you had a good time. And, as a bonus, you will have learned something and been inspired.

Sincerely,

Tracee J. Glab, Executive Director

P.S. To learn about how sometimes “girls just want to have fun,” join Director and Curator of Collections and Exhibitions Sarah Kohn and me on Thursday, March 7 at 6:00p as we have a discussion about women in the arts on the eve of International Women’s Day. This program is free, but registration is required.

Tracee Glab

Executive Director

Tracee Glab is the Executive Director at the Flint Institute of Arts. She has overseen more than 100 exhibitions and curated 40 exhibitions, working with the community on such exhibitions as Jerry Taliaferro’s Women of a New Tribe (2017) and Sons: Seeing the Modern African American Male (2022). She has collaborated with other Michigan institutions for Common Ground: African American Art from the Flint Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, and Muskegon Museum of Art (2015–16) and with University of Michigan-Flint faculty on Self-Expression (2017). She has worked extensively with contemporary artists, both locally and internationally. Glab has also overseen fifteen publications, contributing to the 50th-anniversary book Magnificence and Awe: Renaissance and Baroque Art in the Viola E. Bray Gallery (2011) among others. Her interests include exploring the ways objects of various time periods and cultures can connect to people thematically, most recently culminating in a lecture on “Beautiful Death.” Prior to her role at the FIA, she worked for 10 years at the Detroit Institute of Arts across many departments, including curatorial, publications, and education. Glab has her MA in Art History from Wayne State University and BA in Art History from University of Michigan-Dearborn. Glab was also honored with two competitive travel grants to London and Oxford to conduct her master's thesis research on the 19th century British painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Officers & Trustees

The board of directors is the governing body of a nonprofit. Individuals who sit on the board are responsible for overseeing the organization’s activities. Board members meet periodically to discuss and vote on the affairs of the organization. At a minimum, an annual meeting must occur with all board members present. Additional meetings are likely to take place throughout the year so board members can discuss and make other necessary decisions. Board memberships are not set up to be permanent positions; most organizations have terms set up for board members, which typically fall between two and five years.