SHEBOYGAN, WI.- The John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, has appointed Ann Brusky as its new deputy director of programming and tapped Jodi Throckmorton for the newly created chief curator position. Both will assume their new roles on March 1.

“Ann and Jodi bring valuable experiences, expertise, and voices to a senior leadership team that is committed to JMKAC being a place where artists can experiment and thrive, and to providing meaningful experiences for all audiences. I look forward to working with them in the continuation and growth of those core Arts Center values,” said incoming Arts Center Director Amy Horst. On March 1, Horst assumes the Arts Center directorship with the retirement of the current director, Sam Gappmayer.

As deputy director of programming, Brusky will oversee planning and strategy for all Arts Center programming departments , including exhibitions, education, performing arts, community arts, Arts/Industry residency program, and the preschool. She currently heads JMKAC’s performing arts, community arts, education, and preschool departments.

Brusky has served as an advisor for the National Dance Project and the executive director of the Wisconsin Dance Council. In addition to curating and commissioning works for performance at the Arts Center, Brusky initiated technical and creation residencies at JMKAC that allow artists time and space to develop new work.

Having joined the JMKAC staff in 2002, Brusky was named performing arts assistant in 2003. She was promoted to head the performing arts department in 2007. Since 2012, she has overseen public programs, including performing arts, community arts, preschool, and education. In that role, she has generated strategies to engage diverse constituencies and promote the Arts Center’s role as an innovative multidisciplinary resource in generating creative exchanges between artists and the public.

Jodi Throckmorton comes to the Arts Center from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she was the curator of contemporary art. She most recently earned accolades for curating a retrospective exhibition and publication on the work of Joan Semmel titled Joan Semmel: Skin in the Game.

During her over seven years at PAFA, she added transformational works by contemporary artists to the collection, including purchases of work by Mequitta Ahuja, Joan Brown, Chitra Ganesh, Ebony G. Patterson, Marie Watt, and Dyani White Hawk, among others. Throckmorton also partnered with Paulson Fontaine Press to make PAFA the East Coast archive of prints by African American artists from the press. In 2018 and 2019, Art Agency, Partners recognized PAFA as a leader in museum acquisitions by women and African American artists. Previously, she held curatorial positions at the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University and the San Jose Museum of Art in California.




As chief curator, Throckmorton will focus on exhibition and collection strategy and managing that staff as well as the Arts/Industry residency program staff.

Ann Brusky joined the Arts Center staff in 2002 and was named performing arts assistant in 2003. She was promoted to head the performing arts department in 2007. Since 2012, she has overseen public programs, including performing arts, community arts, preschool, and education. In that role, she has generated strategies to engage diverse constituencies and promote the Arts Center’s role as a vital and invigorating multidisciplinary resource to generate a creative exchange between artists and the public.

In her work with performing arts, Brusky has a deep dedication to dance. She has served as an advisor for the National Dance Project and has been executive director for the Wisconsin Dance Council. She has curated and commissioned works including How to Lose a Mountain with Dance Exchange, Marielle Allschwang’s Precession of a Day: The World of Mary Nohl, and the remount of Catherine Galasso’s get dancing. To create opportunities for artists to make new work, Brusky initiated technical and creation residencies with Phantom Limb Co. and Ashwini Ramaswamy.

Brusky believes the arts play a vital role in helping people and communities and looks for ways to make the arts a part of everyday life. Her past initiatives include working with the local school district to turn the Arts Center’s arts-based preschool into a public tuition-free opportunity, assembling an education cohort to write curricula based on the Arts Center’s collection, and leading major community events such as the Levitt AMP Sheboygan Music Series and JMKAC’s annual Midsummer Festival of the Arts. Brusky has also served on various panels with Wisconsin Art Board and Arts Midwest and boards including The Étude Governing Board and the Robert E. Gard Foundation.

Brusky holds a master’s in arts administration from Goucher College and a bachelor’s degree with an emphasis in theatre from University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Jodi Throckmorton most recently was the curator of contemporary art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia. Before joining PAFA in 2014, she was curator of modern and contemporary art at the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University in Kansas and had previously been associate curator at the San Jose Museum of Art in California.

Most recently, Throckmorton curated a retrospective exhibition and publication on the work of Joan Semmel titled Joan Semmel: Skin in the Game. She also organized the exhibition and publications for Rina Banerjee: Make Me a Summary of the World (2018) with Lauren Dickens and Postdate: Photography and Inherited History in India (2015).

Among her other past projects are Nick Cave: Rescue (2018), Paul Chan: Pillowsophia (2017), Melt/Carve/Forge: Embodied Sculptures by Cassils (2016). Alyson Shotz: Plane Weave (2016), Bruce Conner: Somebody Else’s Prints (2014), Questions from the Sky: New Work by Hung Liu (2013), Dive Deep: Eric Fischl and the Process of Painting (2013), Ranu Mukherjee: Telling Fortunes (2012), and This Kind of Bird Flies Backward: Paintings by Joan Brown (2011).

Throckmorton holds an MA in museum studies from San Francisco State University and a BA in art history and French from University of Nebraska-Lincoln.