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Joanna Sikes is the Museum of Northwest Arts Interim Executive Director. Michelle Hurteau, board president, wrote in an email that the board was excited to have Sikes start. Her emphasis will be on “fundraising, financial management, marketing and community relations,” Hurteau wrote.

Sikes was called one of Dale Chihuly’s “chief aides” in a 1996 Seattle Times article. In 2012 the Museum of Glass in Tacoma named Sikes its director of external affairs. The Museum’s website stated that Sikes had “worked for more than 20 years at Chihuly Studio in the roles of studio manager, marketing/client relations and director of special projects.” Sikes’ career, summed up at the Museum of Glass website, includes positions at the “Phoenix Fine Arts Museum the Crocker Museum of Art and the American Federation of Arts … and project manager for Donald Lipski.

She is often asked to lecture on the world of glass and the work of Dale Chihuly.

Her first day was April 23. Neither staff nor Hurteau have responded to requests for more information on Sikes or her work for the museum.