PNCA/MoCC announced today that my longtime friend Jeffrey Thomas will be the new Acting Director of the rebounding Museum of Contemporary Craft. It is a 6 month appointment, which can be renewed.



What about Jeff? As Tom Cramer once so succinctly put it, "He's a genius level level marketer." He's also a former Soho gallerist (he was the Thomas of the Jamison/Thomas gallery) and his mother was part of Warhol's factory scene. Thomas is also very opinionated with a sharp eye for detail. There's nobody more fun to argue about art and design with in Portland... the two of us could sell tickets and go on tour.

Obviously he's there to increase MoCC's dynamicism (and design world hustle) but one wonders if it will be enough? The thing about Jeffrey that anyone can see coming a mile away is that he misses the hustle of being a gallerist. Is being a museum director going to be enough? Perhaps that's why it is a 6 month appointment? The MoCC has rebounded from the big hit it took in the recession and move but needs to keep up its social ties with patrons at the top level. Jeffrey can do that. Thomas relishes challenges like very few people and I have every reason to believe he gives MoCC something they have needed at the top... a very current and proactive sense of dynamicism. It's a bold but intelligent move as one of Portland's oldest institutions reinvents itself as one of it's youngest thinking.

I'm not too up on theory but are you referring to Tim van Gelders's definition of Dynamicism?