On Sunday, September 13, the Frank Buxton Auditorium at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art filled up for a screening of Migration of the Seebound Heart, followed by a panel discussion and a reception. The next morning, Andy Maus reports for his first day as BIMA's executive director. Nobody in that Sunday audience worked for him yet. For nearly three months before that screening, BIMA didn't have a permanent director at all.
Most people who spent their summer at BIMA probably didn't notice. That's the part worth sitting with.
The Gap Nobody Advertised
Sheila Hughes led BIMA for a decade before her departure, effective June 20, 2026. The museum's board didn't announce her successor until July 23, more than a month later, when it named Andy Maus, then and still the executive director of Tacoma Art Museum, as the next person to run the place. Maus doesn't officially start until September 14. Add it up and BIMA operated for roughly twelve weeks with no permanent executive at the top, right through the stretch of the calendar when the museum does the most business.
The board's own language, thanking "interim executive director Korum Bischoff and the entire BIMA staff for their steady leadership during a successful transition," is the only public acknowledgment that this gap existed at all. It reads like a footnote. For an institution that draws more than 100,000 visitors a year, a leaderless summer sounds like the kind of thing that should show up somewhere on the calendar. It didn't.
What Filled the Building With No One at the Top
Here's what actually ran at BIMA during the interim stretch, staged and staffed without a permanent director in the office:
- BIMA Treasure Trek, June 1 through June 30, a hand-blown glass float hunt across Kitsap County parks
- KiDiMu Summer Camps, June 15 through August 28, STEAM-themed day camps for kids ages 3 to 9
- BIMA Summer Camps, July 6 through August 28, week-long art camps for kids ages 6 to 11
- Gretchen Yanover in Concert, July 25, an evening of live electric cello with visual projections
- Object Lessons: Artist Talk with Carletta Carrington Wilson, August 1
- The Abundance of Salalberries pədt'aqa, August 22, a museum-wide celebration of the Suquamish Tribe with fashion, storytelling and demonstrations, paired the same day with a Curated Conversation on Suquamish Style featuring Robin Little Wing Sigo and Suquamish tribal members
That's not a skeleton schedule holding the doors open until someone shows up to take charge. That's a full season, delivered on time, by staff and board working under an interim appointment. If BIMA's calendar depended on a single office at the top, this is exactly the stretch where it would have thinned out. It didn't.
Why the Board Took Its Time
The slower read here isn't that BIMA scrambled to fill a vacancy. It's that the board could afford not to. Announcing a successor five weeks after Hughes's last day, then giving that successor almost two more months before he'd actually start, is not the timeline of an institution in crisis. It's the timeline of one confident enough in its own machinery to run a national search properly and let the calendar catch up.
"BIMA conducted a national search which revealed a deep and rich field of talented potential Executive Directors," said board president Suzanna Darcy.
That search was run in partnership with m/Oppenheim Executive Search, the kind of outside firm a museum brings in when it wants candidates it wouldn't otherwise see, not when it's trying to plug a hole fast.
Who's Walking In, and What He's Inheriting
Andy Maus arrives with more than sixteen years in museum leadership. Before Tacoma Art Museum, he ran the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota, where he's credited with helping double the museum's endowment and securing funding for capital improvements, and before that the Minnesota Marine Art Museum. He holds a master's degree in public administration and nonprofit management, plus an undergraduate degree in studio art, both from Minnesota State University Moorhead. He also sits on the board of trustees for the Association of Art Museum Directors.
That resume matters less for what it says about Maus and more for what it means about the job he's stepping into. He isn't arriving to stabilize an institution that stalled without him. He's arriving to a museum that just spent its busiest season proving it doesn't need any one person in the building to keep its programming moving. That's a different kind of first day than most incoming directors get.
The Week That Actually Marks the Handoff
Here's the split, in practice:
| Interim Era (June 20 – Sept 13) | New Era (Sept 14 onward) | |
|---|---|---|
| Leadership | Korum Bischoff, interim executive director | Andy Maus, executive director |
| Marquee programming staged | Treasure Trek, summer camps, Gretchen Yanover concert, Salalberries celebration | MANHATTAN SHORT Film Festival, Sept. 24–27 |
| What it demonstrates | The program calendar runs independent of the front office | New leadership inherits a machine already in motion |
The Migration of the Seebound Heart screening on September 13, the last major public event before Maus's contract begins, happened entirely under interim leadership. His actual first public event as director will be the MANHATTAN SHORT Film Festival running September 24 through 27, where visitors watch ten acclaimed short films from around the world and vote on their favorites. It's a fitting starting point precisely because it requires nothing from him except showing up to an event the museum already knows how to run.
What a Museum That Runs Itself Says About the Island
BIMA opened in 2013 and has grown into one of the country's more recognized homes for regional contemporary art and craft, known nationally for the Cynthia Sears Artists' Books Collection, according to the museum's own board leadership. An institution reaches that kind of footing by building something that survives turnover at the top, not by depending on the charisma of whoever happens to hold the title. This summer was the proof. A ten-year director left, an interim stepped in, a national search ran its full course, and the museum's signature programming didn't skip a beat in between.
For a place like Bainbridge, where community institutions carry weight well beyond their gift shops and membership drives, that's the kind of continuity worth noticing even if you have no plans to walk through BIMA's doors this month. It says the island's cultural infrastructure isn't as fragile as a single leadership change might suggest. Whether or not you catch the MANHATTAN SHORT lineup later this month, that's worth knowing about the place you live.
At Mark Middleton Real Estate, we've watched Bainbridge's institutions weather changes like this one for years, because paying attention to what actually holds a community together is part of how we do this work. If you're thinking about what's next for your own place on the island, we'd welcome the chance to talk. Request a private consultation whenever the time is right.
