Jerome Foundation Welcomes New Directors Salome Asega, Dr. Kate Beane, Janet Wong and New Members Linda Earle and Phyllis Rawls Goff

Sep 13, 2024

Jerome Foundation—a Saint Paul-based Minnesota and New York City arts funder—is honored to welcome new Directors Salome Asega, Dr. Kate Beane, and Janet Wong and new Members Linda Earle and Phyllis Rawls Goff to the governance team.

The Members Chair Sara Maud Lydiatt-Vanier and Board of Directors Chair Kate Barr shared their excitement, saying, “As the Foundation celebrates its 60th year, we are beyond thrilled to be joined by these stellar leaders. They each bring expansive connections to artists, culture bearers, and arts ecosystems, and enduring commitments to nurturing, supporting, and advocating for equitable experiences for artists.”

President and CEO Eleanor Savage amplified the critical thought partnership role of Directors and Members, noting, “In this time of questioning, challenging, and re-imagining across arts fields and in philanthropy, the Foundation is fortunate to engage with inspired artists and arts leaders as thought partners to help vision and navigate the called-for transformations.”

Both Members and Directors, elected for multiple three-year terms, are essential partners in the work of the Foundation, contributing invaluable guidance on Jerome's journey toward equitable grantmaking and in support of its mission and values. The Members of the Jerome Foundation—a group of up to five individuals including both Hill family relations and individuals without kinship—are charged with preserving the legacy of the Founder, Jerome Hill, ensuring that the charitable purposes of the Foundation are observed, and electing the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors—comprised of working artists and arts administrators, as well as individuals whose professional lives and expertise lie outside of the arts—are vested in the governance, management, and direction of the Jerome Foundation, and approve all grants awarded by the Foundation.

Salome Asega, an artist and Director of NEW INC at the New Museum, invites the playful and the absurd in her explorations and development of consent-based models for technology that are cooperative, distributed, and people-centered. Through her own work and in the creative programs she stewards, Asega consistently leverages the power of collective imagination and the possibilities and challenges of the technologies that will get us there. Asega is a 2022 United States Artists Fellow and an inaugural cohort member of the Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab developed by Theaster Gates, Rebuild Foundation, and Prada. She is also a co-founder of POWRPLNT, a Brooklyn digital arts lab for teens.

 

Salome is in a chair seating against a white wall, surrounded by flowers.

Dr. Kate Beane (Flandreau Santee Sioux Dakota and Muscogee Creek) is the Executive Director of the Minnesota Museum of American Art. She holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, where she serves as adjunct faculty in the American Indian Studies Program. Dr. Beane is actively developing collaborative curatorial and programming models centered on creative exchange and co-creation with artists, culture bearers, and communities and building strong relationships with artists who have been historically and presently excluded from many American art museums.

 

Kate Beane smiling at the camera

Janet Wong is the Associate Artistic Director of New York Live Arts and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company where she collaborates with Bill T. Jones in the work of the company as well as the curation and programming at New York Live Arts. Wong is invested in creating opportunities that assist artists in building sustainable careers. Born and trained in Hong Kong, she is an accomplished ballet dancer and artistic director, with an expansive commitment to nurturing artists.

 

Close up portrait of Janet Wong, standing against a brick wall

Linda Earle is steadfast in her work to advance artists, cultural managers and curators to create new platforms for cultural practice, participation, and discourse, and in challenging institutions to define and adopt equitable practices. Prior to retiring, Earle was a Professor of Practice in Art History at Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Previously Earle worked as Executive Director the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New York Arts Program, as Director at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and as a Senior Program Director at the New York State Council on the Arts, where she crafted the Individual Artists Program and worked in program and fiscal analysis of and support for museums and contemporary visual arts organizations.

 

Linda Earle, wearing glasses and earrings and smiling at the camera

Phyllis Rawls Goff serves as a community volunteer with several nonprofit organizations in the Twin Cities area, including the Minnesota Historical Society, the McKnight Foundation, and the Saint Paul YWCA. As a community connector and experienced steward, Goff is committed to supporting and advocating to make a positive difference. Prior to retirement, Goff worked as an executive in the industries of telecommunications, higher education administration, and philanthropy. Her career has included handling government relations, community affairs and customer service; serving as chief of staff to the president at Hamline University; and interim chief of staff at The Saint Paul Foundation and Minnesota Community Foundation.

 

Phyllis Rawls Goff smiling at the camera

The Jerome Foundation, founded in 1964 by artist and philanthropist Jerome Hill (1905-1972), honors his legacy through multi-year grants to support the creation, development, and presentation of new works by early career artists and culture bearers.

The Foundation makes grants to early career generative artists, those nonprofit arts organizations that serve them, and arts ecosystem initiatives in all artistic fields in the state of Minnesota and the five boroughs of New York City. The Foundation’s core values, integrated into its grantmaking and reflected in the work of its grantees, are intersectional racial equity, diversity, innovation, risk, and humility.