Native American arts center in Eastern Oregon welcomes new leader

For more than 30 years, Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts has operated inside a small, 19th-century stucco building that was once a Catholic mission on the Umatilla Reservation in Eastern Oregon. In October, Phinney Brown became the organization’s executive director and a big part of her job will be to lead a capital campaign to fund a new headquarters.

“Our building has a legacy that doesn’t serve us in the long run. Most of these residential schools were trying to teach native children to unlearn their traditions and language,” Brown said. “It’s very old and can’t always support everything we want it to do here. I think a new building will be a fresh start.”

Brown’s background is in the performing arts. She most recently worked for the Arts Center Task Force in Richland, Washington, which is leading a campaign to build a performing arts center in the Tri-Cities.

“I helped make the organization more visual. And helped lay the groundwork for the public side of funding for that project,” Brown said.