Anna visscher
Chief Shenanigans Officer
Anna is our visual arts program manager and head bean counter. She curates, plans, cajoles, and organizes art installations into existence. This means doing everything from dreaming up new programming with Danielle and mentoring artists, to running our volunteer program and planning out traffic patterns and signage. She also oversees the budget and operations. She is fond of saying that it takes whole lot of serious planning and preparation to pull off a truly random act of silliness, and she loves both the creative and logistical parts of her job.
She grew up bouncing between cities on both coasts and small towns in rural Montana. She spent her childhood building fairy and borrower houses, writing and illustrating stories about magical creatures, gardening with her mother, and listening to stories read by her dad. She spent the rest of her time reading voraciously with a dog nearby. Anna has always felt most happy when consuming, creating, discussing or scheming art and stories, ideally with a dog nearby.
Anna studied photography, human development and early childhood education. She took a winding career path that included nannying, teaching preschool, curating art exhibits, and a whole lot of retail. She spent 9 years as the owner and manager of tart, an art gallery and gift shop in the Emerson Center. She has also worked as a creative director, a content creator, and a marketing and business consultant.
She lives with her husband, writer and actor Kent Davis, in a little house with a big garden inhabited by bees, butterflies, worms, birds, a shy troll and a couple of feisty fairies. When she’s not working, she makes art, gardens, cooks, and reads. If Anna had a magical power, it would be understanding dog speech. She has a lot of questions.
“I love that RAS is enjoyed by youngsters and elders and everyone in between, proving that we’re never too old for whimsy and wonder. There is a joy in sparking laughter, lightness and creativity in others that is like nothing else. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to do this work which feeds me as much as it feeds others.”
